Talon Intelligence Squadron: Book 1
by Talon Intelligence Squadron
Summary: Talon Intelligence Squadron Book 1: "Not Always As They Seem" The first book in the Jedi Council Forums legendary squadfic series, Talon Intelligence Squadron!
1. Introduction & Chapter 1

Welcome to the very first installment of a Jedi Council Forums fan fiction legend! What you are about to read is a collaborative effort by the original authors to restore the Talon Intelligence Squadron series, the best-known and longest-running squadfic ever to grace the JC with its wild and hysterical antics. **Talon Squad Leader** created TIS in January 2000, but never in his wildest dreams could he have ever foreseen its growth. It practically took on a life of its own. Two years, twenty large threads, dozens of authors and characters, and a myriad of plot twists later, the series was legendary.

The story has never left our hearts. For those of us who survived all of the threads, TIS remains a subject of awe. Recently, the original authors have regrouped and have dedicated themselves to restoring the series from the beginning for a new generation to take in. While it has been eight years since the series began, it is still as fresh to me as ever. With the passing of **TSL** in 2004, his story has become even more important to me and many others. In his honor and in the memory of what was and still is the greatest squadfic ever to hit the JC, we, the original Talon authors, are dedicated to restoring TIS to its original glory.

**Talon Intelligence Squadron:  
Not Always As They Seem**

_Book One of the  
Talon Intelligence Squadron series_

Various Authors

**Disclaimer/Copyright**

We, the Talon authors and artists, do not own Star Wars and do not claim any rights to the characters, places, events, and ideas in this book that are not original creations. We acknowledge that we are merely "playing" in an already-extant creation and appreciate the oppotunity.

We also do not own or the Jedi Council Forums and do not claim any rights to these entities based upon their use in planning and organizing this series.

All original characters, places, events, and ideas in this book belong to their respective authors and artists and may be used with permission from the author or artist who created the work. This is no assumption of legal copyright, but a respectful request to acknowledge the hard work that went into this project. Just as we enjoy playing in this particular universe, readers and future Talons are certainly welcome to enjoy what we've put together, and in fact, we encourage it.

**Acknowledgement/Dedication**

Many Talons have contributed to this series, including the following Talons responsible for the work put into this first book:

**Darth McClain****  
Darth Muis  
Idiots Array****  
Lilith Demodae  
Mara Jade, Emperor's Hand  
****RogueLead11  
StarscreamPrime****  
stoneheart  
Trika_Kenobi  
TrulyGhent**

Thank you all for the journey!

To Mr. George Lucas, who created a masterpiece of wonder that is enjoyed the world over. You've inspired us to channel our own creativity and passion into your world, and we appreciate the freedom to play.

To Kevin, who created a masterpiece of wonder that is enjoyed the world over. You've inspired us to channel our own creativity and passion into this wonderful Talonverse, which is now the highest form of appreciation we can give back to you. Thank you.

**Dramatis Personae/Roster and Crew**

**Operations  
**_Lead_ - Captain Kevin Ski - pilot, engineer  
_Two _- Second Lieutenant Danya Faithwood - hacker, slicer  
_Three_ - Second Lieutenant Kendrick Quinn - pilot, mechanics  
_Four_ - Second Lieutenant Quis Heartilly - engineer, chemist

**Support**  
_Five_ - Lieutenant Jaren Kai - sniper, infiltration  
_Six_ - Second Lieutenant Telia Aris - sniper, infiltration  
_Seven_ - Sergeant Rubi Jais - espionage, infiltration  
_Eight _- Second Lieutenant Mekial Yrisar - espionage, infiltration

**Intrusions**  
_Nine_ - Lieutenant Jane Muir - infiltration, combat  
_Ten _- Staff Corporal Janus "Stone" Talson - combat, medic  
_Eleven_ - Second Lieutenant Trika Adair - slicer, hacker  
_Twelve_ - Staff Corporal Milan Lirac - infiltration, combat

**Operations II**  
_Thirteen_ - Lieutenant Kithera Rinani - weapons, engineer  
_Fourteen_ - Second Lieutenant Kaiba Cloudrifter - mechanics, engineer  
_Fifteen_ - Second Lieutenant Rinin Altura - weapons, engineer  
_Sixteen _- Second Lieutenant Ty Flynn - pilot, mechanics

**Talon Support Group  
**Sergeant Floreverus Bullwinkle - culinary art, drill

**Dramatis Personae/Pronunciation Guide**

Kevin Ski (Human male from Dantooine)_  
KEH-vin SKEE_

Danya Faithwood (Human female from Commenor)  
_DAN-yah FAYTH-wood_

Kendrick Quinn (Human male from unknown homeworld)  
_KEN-drik QUINN_

Quis Heartilly (Human female from Lamaredd)  
_QWYS HART-il-ee_

Jaren Kai (Human male from Kuat)  
_JAIR-en KY_

Telia Aris (Human female from Melida/Daan)  
_TEEL-ya AIR-is_

Rubi Jais (Human female from Adumar)  
_RUE-bee JYS_

Mekial Yrisar (Human female from Stepula)  
_Meek-ee-YAL REE-sar_

Jane Muir (Human female from Balmorra)  
_JAYNE MEW-er_

Janus "Stone" Talson (Human male from Chandrila)  
_JAN-us STONE TAL-son_

Trika Adair (Chinaési female from Chinaé)  
_TRY-kuh Uh-DAIR_

Milan Lirac (Kiffar male from Kiffu)  
_MY-luhn LEER-ak_

Kithera Rinani (Human female from Circarpous V)  
_Kih-THAIR-uh Rih-NAN-ee_

Kaiba Cloudrifter (Human female of Frigate _Dark Mystic_)  
_KY-buh CLOUD-rift-er_

Rinin Altura (Twi'lek male from Ryloth)  
_RIN-in Al-TUR-uh_

Ty Flynn (Human male from Blonus)  
_TY FLIN_

Floreverus Bullwinkle (Human male from Atiragram)  
_Flor-EV-er-us BULL-wink-ul_

The following events take place 11 ABY_  
_

_**Talon Intelligence Squadron: Not Always As They Seem**_  
_**Chapter One: "It's not every day that a young officer gets to work under Captain Kevin Ski."**_

_For ten years I have seen my career with the New Republic flourish and soar, much like the eagle I presently wear on my shoulder. Now I see that same career circling the drain and into an abyss of disgrace. Will this particular insignia be my bane?_

"Sir, the first of the lieutenants has arrived."

_I am not bitter for the assignment. The assignment is good... and needed. I am more than ever challenged by it. Perhaps, though, I am made bitter by the humiliation._

"Sir, Lieutenant Kai is waiting. Shall I escort him in?"

_They couldn't have picked a better person for the job. I'm probably the only one who has a chance to pull this off. I am also the only one that they would ever set up like this._

"Sir?"

Finally looking up from his brooding thoughts, Captain Kevin Ski cocked an eyebrow at his persistent military droid, H9-0. For a brief moment he entertained a thought of letting a couple of his new personnel reprogram him. "Escort him in, H9." Ski gestured toward the door of his office. The red and white droid turned and headed into the lobby. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Ski added quietly, "Here goes nothing."

It was only a short second later that Lieutenant Jaren Kai was escorted into his office. Snapping a salute, the young human male appeared disciplined in the highest regard. His uniform, marked with the proper rank and rating, was pressed and clean. His gaze was perfectly set just above his captain's head.

Ski made a mental note to thank whoever assigned this fellow to Talon Intelligence Squadron.

Captain Ski smiled slightly while taking a look at Kai's datapad. Fortunately, the only red mark on the display was the small detail that Lieutenant Kai had been raised Imperial through and through. The fact that it was marked to "alert" him to the potential danger made Ski chuckle a bit.

"Jaren Kai, correct?" Ski wasted no time with formalities, standing and returning the salute. Kai dropped his right arm and nodded with a formal, "Yes, sir." The captain extended his hand in greeting, a casual move normally reserved for days down the road. Hesitantly, the young officer took the hand. "I am Captain Kevin Ski. Welcome to Talon Squad."

"Thank you, sir," Kai returned. "I appreciate your invitation. It's not every day that a young officer gets to work under Captain Kevin Ski."

Ski released Kai's hand and offered the seat on the other side of his desk. The two sat down. "You've heard of me, Lieutenant?"

"Sir, it is hard to have _not_ heard of you," Kai returned, sitting attentively and giving his new commanding officer his unwavering attention. "You're practically a legend to those who know anything about the Rebellion."

He knew this wasn't plain flattery. "I would say that Commander Antilles holds the status of 'legend' fairly well," Ski retorted, taking another brief glance at Kai's collected data. "My files are filled with worthless information, just like any pilot of that era. Your own are quite impressive, however. I see you have a bit of an Imperial background."

Kai remained composed despite the somewhat implied insult. "My family's devotion to the Empire is not my own, I assure you. My record since joining the New Republic should prove my loyalties."

"Join the club," came the simple response. Ski tossed the datapad aside and looked squarely at his first recruit. His demeanor changed rapidly and his tone turned very serious. Even his bluish gray eyes iced over. "I'm going to be quite honest with you, Lieutenant. This all seems quite..." Ski waved his hands loosely around the cluttered and unpacked office, as if trying to pinpoint the correct word, "...mysterious, am I right?"

The young man seemed taken aback by the quick change and nodded slightly. "All I was told about this assignment was the basic mission profile of Talon Squad, plus your note about my heading up the Support team. I was not even given any information about the other personnel you will be placing in my care, sir."

_How to explain the situation?_ "Let's simply say that the first few weeks are going to be some of the most fascinating I will ever experience in my life. I'm going to let you get settled before the rest of the group arrives, but we will be discussing the details tonight when everyone else is unpacking."

Ski stood, the obvious sign that their meeting was over. Kai stood and sharply saluted. The salute was returned casually and, as Kai turned to leave, Captain Ski tossed an information pad and a set of scan cards to his first recruit. "Rooms are on the fourth floor. You'll find what you need in that datapad." With that, Lieutenant Jaren Kai exited the office and left Captain Ski with a slight smirk on his face.

He allowed himself the pleasure of leaving the smile there for a second longer. Ski flipped one of the datapads around so that he could see it more clearly. He took a look at his next officer's record. Solidly clean in every way. Past experience in intelligence analysis. A weaponry expert, skilled in determining signature data from orbital missile-defense systems. Thinking back over his career, he honestly couldn't say whether he had met such an expert. She seemed very specialized in her knowledge, but her leadership qualities intrigued him more. An early leader. One who could be a benefit in keeping troublemakers in line. Ski was so engrossed in thought that he hardly noticed the petite form awaiting him at the door.

She cleared her throat, drawing him from his wandering daydream. Ski started with a visible jerk, yet composed himself quickly before it was completely obvious. "Lieutenant Rinani. Kithera Rinani. Correct?" he asked, resting a stiff left arm on his desk.

Sharp as a tack, the young woman stepped forward into his office and came to rest at attention. "Yes, sir," she answered crisply. "Lieutenant Rinani reporting for duty." She presented a set of two datapads, which he took, and returned to attention.

Ski unceremoniously dropped the devices onto his desk and gestured to the seat beside her. "Please, Lieutenant, have a seat. I am Captain Kevin Ski. Welcome to Talon Intelligence Squadron."

"Thank you, sir," she answered, taking a seat just as Ski settled into his own chair. "I am very excited about the assignment here. I'm not sure what all the position entails, but knowing I'll be serving under you is a great honor."

He had brought his chin to rest in the palm of his hand, his elbow casually taking up residence at the edge of the desk. He might have been honored by such a remark, but in all honesty, he couldn't bring himself to even smile genuinely at the statement. "You're excited? That's good," he mused absently, taking another look at her and then at the datapad. He snapped back into a mood more fitting of a commanding officer. "I, uh… I noticed you have extensive teaching experience. You moved into a number of leadership positions early on when you first enlisted."

The unique pull of her wavy brown hair, done up in a bun, made her face appear lean and serious. Her eyes, dark green orbs, calculated his every word. "The Flight Academy at Aaeton took me on as an instructor after I graduated," she clarified, lowering her gaze at him. "Mostly mechanical knowledge. To be honest, I thought they could have found anybody for the position. It was my first command, and I moved up in rank rather quickly."

Ski could very well identify with that. He could very well identify with having leadership thrown upon one's shoulders. In the midst of a galactic war, he had similarly had to adapt quickly to leading others. "Your record states that you qualified to be an officer two years later. By my reckoning," he said, noticing the slight shift in her posture, "you should have made it to a captain's ranking before being sent here."

Well, he had said it. Kevin hadn't really wanted put her in a tough position, but he had said it. Lieutenant Rinani nodded slightly, taking a moment to gather her words. "The other instructors at the Academy were not very fond of my teaching methods. I had actually developed a new studying tool for my students that increased their test scores by almost seventy percent. Students were learning material in almost half the time." A solemn frown made its way to her face, and her eyes looked away distantly. With the same strength in her voice, she continued on. "I guess I made some of the other instructors jealous. I was recommended for a transfer in my last year there, and once my orders had gone through, I found myself in a desk position pushing flimsies for the Supply Corps Detachment out of Corellia. You'll find the details in that datapad. It wasn't a skill I was authorized to perform, and I lost all of the time I had in the mechanic's rate. I had to start over again pushing flimsies. I was recently promoted right before I received my orders to the Talons. It's my old job, but they've kept my ranking where it is for the time being."

Captain Ski found a whole new appreciation for the woman in still having the heart for the job. Losing rank was never an easy blow to bear, especially having never been at fault. He could definitely identify with _that_. He smiled, wishing for her sake that the secretary handling her files would neglect the change in rate _again_. "That's quite an interesting story," he commented, mulling over the injustice of it all. "_Quite_ an interesting story. I'm sorry to hear that it's happened to you, though. I don't suppose you understand just how much I know how you feel."

She stiffened, contemplating whether she should ask for further clarification. "I only know of you by reputation, sir. Your record with the Rebellion is stunning to read."

Ski might have blushed if he had forgotten that he was sitting on the bottom floor of a dilapidated and horribly unattractive building. Somehow, the southern sector's structure authority had not condemned his new headquarters. "We all do what we have to, Lieutenant. My past is, fortunately, _in_ the past. We do what we have to and move on." He met her gaze once again. He had her full attention. What he was about to say, ironically, was more difficult for him to say than he would have thought. "There are going to be many more interesting events in the future, and we have to be ready for them." Ski stood from his chair and offered his hand. "Do you have your introduction package?"

The young woman nodded, taking his hand and shaking it. "Yes, sir. My room and assignment are good, but I did not receive any details about the personnel I'm to be working with."

_There's a good reason for that_, Ski thought wryly. He merely smiled in response. "These are just formal introductions. There's a briefing schedule included in your packet. You'll get to meet the rest of the squadron tonight when I address the crew. Any other questions can be answered at that time."

"Thank you, sir," Lieutenant Rinani responded. "I'll go ahead and get settled in." With that, she turned on her heel and headed out the door.

"That wasn't so bad," he lightly chided himself, sorting through a random stack of datapads and stopping on his next recruit's information. Rinani had been just as sharp as Kai. The two officers were going to make fine additions to his squadron. Ski had already set his sights on naming one of them his executive officer, and with each of their qualifications to consider, he knew that the choice would be tough. The decision would ultimately come down to their individual training. Whoever came out of basic training unscathed from his _other_ personnel was going to be the lucky winner. He _hoped_ that one of his crispy officers would actually make it through unscathed, anyway. "Can't say much about this next one, though," he added, sighing while eyeing a few key red marks.

Ski grimaced when he heard the throat clear. Looking up, he saw Lieutenant Jane Muir standing at attention. Cursing his habit for speaking his own thoughts, Ski offered the woman a seat. "Lieutenant Jane Muir, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," she said, taking the seat and offering a rather large set of folders.

Ski took the folders, scrunched his nose at them, and tossed the set on top of some particularly uninteresting books in the corner of his desk. "I am Captain Kevin Ski. Welcome to the Talons." He took another moment to glance at the stack of folders. "They still in the habit of wasting flimsies in the Agency?" he asked with a chuckle.

Muir seemed stunned by the question. "They seem to have a good amount to hand out freely." She relaxed a little under Ski's easy gaze. "Those are the details of my last assignment. They don't believe in datapads."

"I'll take a look at it later," he assured her, assuring himself in the process that he would bury the folders in his bottommost desk drawer. "Did you receive your scan cards and information set on your way over?"

Lieutenant Muir raised the package from her side. Kevin nodded, noticing her uniform was also in neat order. She seemed professional enough.

"I suppose we'll find out what kind of personnel you'll have under you later on today," he informed her, taking care to notice how the woman did not seem to be volunteering information very freely. She wasn't a loudmouth. _That_ was for certain. That concept reminded Kevin that these officers were mature because they were to be his leaders. There would be a lot of questions throughout the day as to the _rest_ of his squadron, but that could at least wait until after he dismissed his intrusions team leader.

Muir cocked her head to the side, almost in a spasm of sorts, letting out a brief sigh. "This all seems somewhat strange, sir. I'm a little uncertain as to the nature of -"

Ski held up a hand for her to stop. "We all are, but that's why we're getting these introductions out of the way. Help yourself to the facilities. During the briefing tonight, we'll go over more of the details." He again stood in order to signal the end of the conversation.

Muir stood, but she hesitated a bit longer. "How is it that the great Kevin Ski gets stuck with an assignment like this, if you don't mind my asking, sir?"

_That_ was a question that knocked him back on his heels. "Don't you think that's a little bit inappropriate for our first meeting, Lieutenant?" he prodded, curious to see her response and eager to change the subject. He had been dealing with stupidly bold officers his entire career, and this one suddenly didn't look to be too different.

"I'd like everything laid flat across the table," she ventured, steadily gaining confidence. "I'm good at hiding information and finding it out, but I'm not able to read minds, sir."

Kevin could only guess at what everyone truly thought of his leading the new Talon Intelligence Squadron. Many of his old piloting buddies probably assumed he had hit rock bottom, betting on how many demerits it had taken to land him in this position. _The honest truth, though?_ "Let's just say that I've made a lot of enemies in the galaxy. Make sense?"

"More than you know," Muir said, saluting and turning to walk out the door. As she disappeared around the corner, Ski knew that even though his officers were going to be crispy and somewhat clean, the day was quite young.

With a brief glance at the remaining datapads tainted in red, Ski bit his bottom lip. It was going to be a long day.

*****

The room was silent. Its only inhabitants might have been the dead. Captain Ski, datapads in hand, strolled casually to the front of the briefing room, where he attempted to avoid eye contact with his squadron. He feared looking any one of them in the eye without having his face sour in front of them. _Composure, Ski_, he told himself. _This is leadership_.

He stepped in front of the podium and laid down his items. _Or maybe this is just crazy,_ he corrected himself. There were no formalities or ceremony here, and given the way some of his recruits looked, he wasn't quite sure if some of them even knew how to give a proper salute, let alone have the respect to stand and sit and brown-nose when required. He had even requested that Lieutenants Kai, Muir, and Rinani refrain from calling "attention on deck" when he had entered because he was pretty sure the group would have botched the display, anyway.

At that moment, perhaps he looked older than his thirty standard years, but as he raised his sight to meet his squad, he knew he had to be in the right place. He had to be _here_, in this moment, ready for action, or else risk a quick death to some nameless enemy in the galaxy.

With a sad twist of humor, Ski swallowed hard. He might already be risking a quick death to one of his own recruits.

Gathering his own fortitude and authority, Captain Kevin Ski eyed the group before beginning. "Why are we here?" he asked, drawing the attention of every member of the squad. A few heads turned to the side, others looked confused, and a select couple laughed in response. Altogether, however, he got what he wanted and knew he could keep their attention until he was finished.

"Are we here because we are all so equally blessed with the highest rankings and greatest war records?" he asked a pair of operation team members, Kendrick Quinn and Quis Heartilly, who were sitting at the table farthest to the right. Given the two were about the quietest personnel Ski had ever seen, they seemed a wonderful match-up as Talons Three and Four, respectively, and they seemed to have met and formed a bit of a friendship throughout the day. However, their own records with the military were marred by disrespect and emotional instability. Kendrick's smug look and Quis's anxious fidgeting were proof enough that they would both need some work.

The answer to Ski's question was obvious.

"Are we here because we have the best civilian records? Or perhaps because our slate has never been touched?" Kevin looked at a few of his intrusion members and ironically, his own partner, Danya Faithwood. As a hacker, Talon Two boasted a unique number of accomplishments in information retrieval and the slicing of computer systems, both enemy and friendly. Not all of those jobs were _technically_ legal, but she swore she had worked hard to cover them up and make things better with the offended parties. She was good; Kevin would give her that. Ironically, the illegal doings stood as the top reasons for keeping her as the ground base hacker on the operations team.

"I'll tell you why I'm here," a slightly accented voice spoke up. Many of the Talons turned slightly to view the woman, an odd-looking sight if there was any. Her face was barely visible through the tangle of micro-braided red hair that hung from around her head. "I was sent here because they think I'm going to bring everyone crashing down into a flaming pile of _sithspawn_. They can only hope I do it as quickly as possible."

Ski shook his head, trying to at least lie about _that_ specific fact. "No one is here because they're going to bring this squadron down," he tried to say the words and mean them, too.

"I think she's here because she can't keep her kriffin' mouth shut," a Twi'lek behind her interjected. His light blue _lekku_ were tensed in agitation. "It's not like she's going to be an asset in any way."

Much to Kevin's dismay, Danya Faithwood spoke up. The last thing he needed was another voice in that battle, especially not the woman with whom he would have to maintain a very close relationship. "Yes, let's start off by insulting each other. That really seems like the intelligent thing to do, don't you think?"

Kevin cleared his throat loud enough for all to hear, but a select few clearly did _not_ hear it.

"I know we are not arguing about intelligence or competency," a woman from the middle of the room snorted. Rubi Jais rolled her eyes and attempted to focus on the datapad in her hand. "I see none in this room."

The Twi'lek Rinin Altura stood up suddenly, light blue face flushed. Drawing his side blaster and charging it with a quick _snap_, he aimed for Rubi's head. Before he could come out with his next words, however, the entire room had Rinin in their sights, or at least a good grasp on some form of throwing weapon. The air hummed with laser charges, ready to explode in a moment's notice.

Kevin slammed his fist onto the podium and angrily glared at his group. "Sit _down_! No one is here because they are going to bring this squadron down, and there's no way in this galaxy I'm going to allow this behavior to run rampant in my squadron! Adair, Altura, Faithwood, and Jais, kitchen duty tomorrow."

Some groaned disgustedly, but none of the four really argued the point. The rest of the squad had replaced their weapons and were sitting quietly, albeit with steam pouring from a few heads.

"We are not here necessarily because we are the best, although by my understanding, you all have proven yourselves worthy of the titles," Kevin continued, his voice growing more irritated and stronger. "You all have passed the knowledge and physical requirements for officer candidacy, but you can't get promoted because you can't behave longer than a few seconds. The only reason you aren't flying with the Rogues, spying directly for the Intelligence High Council, or cracking Imperial data from the Rebellion-era is because you can't obey orders, you can't show respect, you can't be a good enlistee or junior officer, and you can't stop getting demerits for acting like _morons_."

The room went silent with the truthful insults. _Well, that went over smoothly_, Kevin thought with a pang of regret. His group was finally paying its entire attention to him. Some were probably shocked at his boldness, but he could tell that others were waiting for the first wrong word to throttle him. He tried to hide his grimace at that notion and at the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.

"We're here to fix all of that," he simply said, gaining a sense of calm in knowing that he would soon be out of the briefing room and back to the loneliness of his office. "Welcome to the Talons. Study your packets that you received earlier today and be ready for training tomorrow. I'm going to leave this room and expect all of you children to play nicely. You're welcome to leave in an hour, but not until then. We rise tomorrow an hour before dawn. Meet me on the sixth floor training area, and I would be dressed for a serious workout."

Gathering his items to leave, he was stopped by a raised hand from the back. It was Lieutenant Rinani. The tired captain held up a single hand and shook his head slightly. "No questions," he said, stepping from the platform. "Obey these orders and we'll be off to a good start tomorrow. Be there on time and ready to go.

"Our time tomorrow will merely add to tonight's bonding time. Good night, Talons."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two: "This assignment is as good as any, I guess."**_

As promised, an hour before dawn, the Talons were dressed and ready to go, lined up for the first day of whatever Kevin Ski had in store. The captain entered promptly, followed by a disgustingly abnormal human male whose hairy, pockmarked face implied that he had been nursed on flash grenades as a child. Ski had a clipboard in one hand and began to call out the roster. The tradition of the roll call almost made Ski want to remember the moment, but then he remembered exactly where he was and with whom he was dealing.

The feeling left rather suddenly.

"Danya Faithwood?" he called. The woman answered loudly to begin the listing at Talon Two. "Kendrick Quinn? Quis Heartilly? Jaren Kai?" All were met with shouts of acknowledgment.

"Telia Aris?" Ski called for Talon Six. There was no answer save for the burst of a rushed human female through the training room doors.

"Telia Aris, you are late," he informed her, as if she could not tell by the stares from her squadmates.

"Sir, the alarm in my room doesn't work properly," she dared to state. "I overslept, sir."

"Remember to arrive in the mess hall with the other Talons for kitchen duty with Sergeant Bullwinkle after dinner tonight," an unconcerned Ski said, marking something down on his clipboard. A slight snicker came from the side of the line, and the captain, seeing nothing funny about _anything_, looked up from his writing to gaze at one of his own. "Would you like to tell me what you think is so funny, Lieutenant Flynn?"

Talon Sixteen snickered some more. "What kind of a name is _Bullwinkle_?" he asked, drawing another chuckle from one of the women next to him.

The dirty and quite scary man next to Captain Ski stood up straight and cocked an eyebrow as he spoke around a half-chewed cigar. "My gre'-gran'pappy ga' me tha' name, boy, an' ain't nobody tryin' to undo wha' he'd done, ya hear?"

Apparently, no one quite understood what the sergeant had said, so the only response that ensued was silence.

Captain Ski let out a held breath and shook his head. He didn't want to think about the repulsive man supporting his entire base's supply needs. "Sixteen, you'll be joining the team in the mess hall as well."

"Rubi Jais? Mekial Yrisar? Jane Muir? Stone Talson?" Ski stopped cold, only a small part of his mind checking off the acknowledgements of those named. _Stone_ Talson? _Wait, that can't be_...

"Talson, please don't try telling me that 'Stone' is your _actual_ first name?"

"No, sir. It's not," came the reply from the combat expert. "It's a nickname I picked up during boot camp; my last CO didn't even bother learning my real first name, so I doubt he'd have thought to put it in my file, sir."

Ski sighed and shook his head. "That makes as much sense as everything else around here. Your _real_ first name, Stone?"

"Janus, sir."

Captain Ski jotted down the information, then made as if to continue down the line. That little itch of curiosity nagged at him, however. He just _had_ to ask even though he knew it would be utterly pointless.

"Talson, how the hell did you end up with _that_ for a nickname?"

Stone remained completely blank-faced as he answered. "It depends on who you ask, sir. I insist it refers to my attitude under fire; my cadre insisted it referred to my skull."

Chuckles ensued down the line of Talons. Ski reserved one for himself as he massaged the bridge of his nose. "Let's hope for the former, Stone," he replied, looking up and continuing down the line.

"Trika Adair? Milan Lirac? Kithera Rinani? Kaiba Cloudrifter? Rinin Altura?" The responses came back quickly and efficiently. "And we all know that Ty Flynn is here because he has the best sense of humor out of all of us," he said, drawing a few smiles and some chuckling from his group.

His sixteen-member roster filled out nicely, and as he scanned them over a couple of times, he could tell exactly who his time bombs were and who his psychotic cases were. He could tell who would be in his office frequently for anger issues and who would be in the kitchen for discipline issues. He noted the abundance of women in his lineup, but he also knew most of his group was as qualified as any in the galaxy. The group as a whole could be united, he knew, but he had his work cut out for him.

"This is how we run Talon Squad, ladies and gentlemen," Captain Ski announced to his group. Tossing the clipboard to Sergeant Bullwinkle, he began to pace the line in front of them. "Sixteen members will be divided into groups according to specialty. We may be moving some of you around once we get done with basic training, but until that time, our tentative roster should do fine. I've analyzed our needs and our abilities and think that we will match up and perform well.

"I lead Talon Squad, but I would be a sithspawn if you think I'm staying behind to enjoy the _luxury_ of our facilities," he continued, getting the few chuckles he wanted. The facilities around them were not entirely for the rich and famous. "I will closely work with the operations team, Talons Lead through Four. Lieutenant Jaren Kai is the lead for the support team, Talons Five through Eight. Lieutenant Jane Muir will lead the intrusions team, Talons Nine through Twelve. Lieutenant Kithera Rinani will lead Talons Thirteen through Sixteen as the second operations team. The squadron will need to be expanded eventually, and I'm hoping for another four members to round out Talons Seventeen through Twenty, the second support team. I hope that they'll be arriving very soon so they don't get too far behind.

"We are all paired in addition to having our specific team," Ski said. "The roster begins with the pairing of _yours truly_ and Faithwood and ends with Altura and Flynn. You'll figure out that we are all partnered either with a common skill, a complementary skill, or because I figured the personalities would work well together. For the first few exercises, team leaders are responsible for their team's finish, but we will be training for the individual first. Talon Squad is only going to be as solid as its weakest member, so I'd encourage you all to take these drills seriously."

The captain gave a short nod to the sergeant named Bullwinkle and took his place, as a Talon, at the very end of the line. _Perhaps the rest of the Talons will feel a sense of unity for the first time_, Ski thought. He had understood from Jaren and Kithera's morning report that the briefing room tactic he had used to get his people to talk had not worked out so well the night before. Unity wasn't exactly a high priority for his people at that point, and that would definitely have to change.

"All right, ya grunts," a loud, obnoxious voice interrupted any other possible thought. "It's time fer a li'l trainin' session with ol' Floreverus Bullwinkle. On my whistle, wind sprints, an' no slackin'." To the dismay of _everyone_, he went through with his threat and blew his whistle.

A few Talons started off quickly, but more than half hesitated, wondering if all of this was some kind of twisted joke. _Wind sprints? Floreverus Bullwinkle?_

By the time Bullwinkle was done with training, however, everyone understood that his training sessions were no joke.

Captain Ski stepped forward and retrieved his clipboard, nodding again to the oddly disgusting sergeant. A man at the upper echelons of fitness, Ski was still drawing breath quickly, along with the rest of his squad. Taking a good look around, though, he could tell who was out of shape and who was in his prime. Some of the Talons were going to need to be in the gym for longer periods of time than others.

"We're going to take a break until this afternoon," Kevin announced, and, much to his amusement, many of his squad breathed a sigh of relief. "You've already received most of the information about protocol and schedules, so I expect those to be read and understood at that time. When we return, we'll be having some friendly competition between teams, so I hope that many of you will head down to the fifth floor lounge and meet the rest of your companions. While you're down there, grab something to eat from the mess hall and be back in two hours." He scanned his group once more, pleased just to have a squad that was willing to train as hard as they all just had. "Am I understood?"

"Yes, sir!" the response came back in one crisp yell.

"Get out of here." Ski waved his hand toward the door and watched as his squadron left. Some rushed out, but others were unable to walk very fast due to some strain on their leg muscles. He simply chuckled.

"They're a funny-lookin' group, eh, Cap'n?"

Ski turned to regard Sergeant Bullwinkle. _This guy has the right to call somebody "funny-looking?"_

"No," he answered instead, wondering where the Intelligence High Council had found this man. "No, I was just laughing because some of them are in an _extraordinary_ amount of pain."

"Bah!" Bullwinkle snorted, appearing to gather enough mucous to spit out. Ski jerked back reflexively, but Bullwinkle simply swallowed the mass in his throat and nodded. "I ain't never killed anybody in training since I got booted from the Corellian 111th Infantry Division. They'll be all right."

As the sergeant turned to leave, Kevin pondered those last words, the disgusted look never leaving his face. He had put Bullwinkle in charge of not only training, but also all meals until Intel sent his squad a proper cook. He would be the only one touching and serving the food that his squadron was expected to eat. "I wonder what's for lunch," he grimaced quietly, heading out the door.

*****

The two snipers had noticed each other from the moment they had arrived on the fourth floor yesterday. Now, the two were sitting across from one another, only a table and two bottles of water between them.

Nothing could keep her from throttling him if she really wanted to do so.

"How did you get assigned here?" Jaren asked suspiciously, the stress of seeing her visibly contorting his face.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Telia's tone was casual, but from the dangerous way she quirked her eyebrow, Jaren knew where this was headed.

"It doesn't mean anything, Tel," he sighed, taking a sip of water and breathing a little bit easier after the workout that morning. The action also conveniently gave him the time to calm his nerves. "You were supposed to be with the 108th Combat Division."

"I was a transfer at the last moment," she explained, not even able to eye him correctly without first unclenching her jaw. "I simply got my orders and obeyed. I didn't know you were keeping track of my duty assignments."

Jaren ignored that last remark and continued on. "There wasn't any notice or clues? No one mentioned why you were coming here?" The concept of sending someone to a position blind was a little odd to Jaren. For a brief, fleeting moment he thought he had pinpointed a possible setup.

"_No_, Jaren," she sarcastically answered. "Does it _always_ have to be _my _fault? Did anyone mention why _you_ were sent here? Since when did you start questioning orders?"

Jaren was about to retort, but stopped, understanding that this pairing was not going to work. If he didn't do something about their issues, they both might bring the support team down and in turn, harm the squadron. Constant bickering was not conducive to a sharp squadron.

After thinking on it for a moment, Jaren came to a conclusion. "This is _exactly_ what they want us to be doing."

"What the _kriff _are you talking about?" Telia demanded, her face exploding into fury.

The young man straightened a bit and softened his gaze. "This is _exactly_ what everyone expects from us in this position. I really can't explain it, but I think we've been set up."

"You're telling me," she snorted, rolling her eyes. Her attention turned to the two human females standing right next to the sofas she and Jaren were occupying. The two ladies gawked at the apparent tension in the air.

Lieutenant Kai stood and offered his hand to them. "You must be the other two support team members. Talons Seven and Eight, right?"

One woman shoved her hand out first, obviously bold. "Mekial Yrisar, Talon Eight," she introduced herself. She was a petite woman with blue eyes and a zest for life to match her fiery hair. Her entire face lit up during their exchange. "I'll be helping out with smuggling, disguise, spying, infiltration, and general elbow grease."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Jaren returned her kindness, pleasantly surprised to at least have one woman on his team who didn't hate his guts. "I'm Jaren Kai, Talon Five. This is Telia Aris," he gestured to his partner, who stood promptly and offered her own hand politely. "We're going to be the snipers for the Talons."

Mekial looked impressed and greeted Telia. Jaren looked to the other woman, who was much sterner than the joyful Mekial. She had even gotten in trouble for her seriousness the night before after snapping at Danya. "Rubi Jais, correct?" he ventured.

The woman gave little more than a nod. "I'll be your espionage and infiltration expert," she said, then nodded to Telia, who was forcing a smile. "Are you sure you two are going to be the snipers for the Talons? It seems as if we walked in at just the right time."

She was bolder than most subordinates; he'd give her that. "It's a long story," Jaren said simply, leaving it at that. He would save the details for Captain Ski at a later time. "Why don't we sit down and get to know each other a little better so that we can move effectively against the other teams? I'm in the mood to make ourselves a prominent asset to Captain Ski in the coming competitions."

*****

"And then I said, 'That's not a landspeeder, that's a 'fresher!'" Ty Flynn let his last joke fly, drawing a couple laughs and many more groans from the second operations team.

"That's great, Ty." Lieutenant Kithera Rinani, the group's leader, attempted to take back control of the meeting and not sound so bland at the same time. "That's _really_ great." The team had gathered at the other end of the lounge because the support team had already taken the _comfortable_ sofas in the corner. She thought longingly for a moment about the worn sofas and shifted her weight on the hard floor. "Why don't we talk about how we're going to beat the other teams?"

Kaiba Cloudrifter, yet another human female, spoke up. "Have you seen the _crazies_ on the intrusion team? They might kill us." She appeared hyped on some form of caffeine.

"Nobody's going to kill anyone," Rinin Altura said, a little more cocky than necessary, as if he could stop the entire squad if needed. "We can take care of anything they throw at us."

"Come on, guys," Kithera pleaded with her team. "Let's just be friends for a few moments, all right?" She couldn't explain why Talons Thirteen through Sixteen simply were not cooperating or behaving. "Ty, why don't you tell us what your specialty is?"

Talon Sixteen perked up, thoroughly ready to talk about himself. "Well, I'm a good pilot and mechanic. I can fix what I break and break what I fix," he said with a chuckle, his mop of brown hair swinging across his face.

"Not if I break your face," Rinin responded under his breath. "Can't you be serious for one moment?"

Kithera had heard, however. "Look, Fifteen, you'd better start getting along with _at least_ your own partner or else this whole ordeal is going to be _very_ unpleasant for you," she shot at him, a surprising move for the diminutive woman. Rinin turned silent once more and she switched her gaze to her own partner. "Kaiba, you're a mechanic as well, right?"

"I fix a lot more than just speeders and craft," Fourteen boasted. "I just don't have the nice degree and title that goes along with being an engineer."

Kithera hesitated to ask Rinin anything, but she did. "Fifteen, Captain Ski kind of separated our skills, but you're a pretty talented weapon engineer and expert, I hear."

"You heard correctly," he answered, then closed up again.

"Well!" Kithera threw her hands up in disgust. "I think we're done here."

*****

"So." Pushing away her meal of unidentifiable slime, Danya looked up at the other members of the operations team. "How did you guys end up here?"

Talons Three and Four, Kendrick Quinn and Quis Heartilly, gazed at her from across the table. Kendrick silently stirred the food around on his plate, his eyes refusing to meet Danya's. It was Quis who spoke first, although she too avoided eye contact, her gaze darting uncertainly between her plate and a spot just above Danya's head.

"I don't really know why I'm here, to be honest. I'd rather be working in a lab or something. I'm not really cut out for any work in the field, but I don't think Captain Ski will let me stay at the base. I wonder what sort of work he'll have me do, actually." Quis ran a hand nervously through her hair. Most of her words and actions seemed to be the product of unrelenting anxiety.

_Not sure I'd want her watching my back..._ Danya glanced at Kendrick. "What about you?" she prompted, not sure she wanted to hear his answer.

It took him a long time to reply. "I used to fly A-wings, but my last commanding officer and I didn't get along too well. I asked for a transfer to make things easier for everyone." He shrugged, his manner careless if not apathetic. "I don't usually stay in one place too long, so this assignment is as good as any, I guess."

It was hard to tell if he was being cocky or deliberately reticent, but either way, it was clear from the way he turned back to his meal that he considered his conversational obligations fulfilled. The hacker gritted her teeth, trying not to show her rising frustration. She had suggested that they all meet for lunch so they could actually get to know each other, but she could have held a better conversation with the pile of mashed potatoes on her tray. She glanced around the room, hoping Captain Ski might join the rest of his team. But no, he was off eating by himself at a separate table. Not that she particularly blamed him.

Back at their table, Kendrick was prodding a particularly disgusting piece of steak. "It looks like someone already tried to eat this and decided to let someone else give it a try," he observed. Shifting his attention to the pile of pale white vegetables next door, he speared some on his fork and appeared to seriously consider them.

"Don't," Quis said warningly. "It doesn't look good." Danya sighed inwardly and pushed her own plate away, her appetite for both food and conversation lost.

The pilot put on a show of bravado. "How bad could it possibly be?" he said and, perhaps before he could think any second thoughts, stuffed the food into his mouth.

*****

"You look funny."

"You smell funny."

"You eat funny."

"At least I eat."

Milan Lirac looked up from his plate of… substance. "Why would I eat anything that looks like that?" The Kiffar male had a unique strip of yellow crossing his brow from his left jaw to his right temple.

"You don't see me eating any of it," Trika Adair said, taking another bite of a bowl of purple slop. The plate she had received from the mess hall line sat harmlessly at the edge of their table. "I saw Sergeant Bullwinkle making the stuff a little earlier. It definitely looked like poison going in _and_ coming back out and onto the serving line."

Milan gave a slight chuckle and cocked an eyebrow at her odd-looking food. "Where did you get that stuff?"

"I brought it with me," the woman stated matter-of-factly, as if he should have known all along. Her dangerously sharp, green eyes suddenly turned off in the distance. Their odd slant gave her a deeply saddened look. "I have a good deal of it left from my last trip to my homeworld."

"Where are you from?"

"Chinaé."

The answer set Milan on his heels, but the mysterious Kiffar was never one to display emotions properly. "I'm sorry," he managed to let out with a bit of sympathy, but Trika wasn't one to look for a drinking partner.

"It's not a big deal anymore." She tossed the sad expression away and turned a smile for the first time since her arrival at the Talons' Nest. With a slightly evil grin, she grabbed his plate from him.

Milan didn't raise a fuss and didn't make a move to stop her. If the odd-looking Chinaési female wanted the food for herself, she was more than welcome to it. He planned on staying away from the mess hall permanently after the intrusion team meeting that afternoon. Where Sergeant Bullwinkle had managed to learn the art of cooking, he did not know, but the concoction of green and oozing slime between the two wet buns could probably floor the most hardened of warriors. "What are you doing?" he asked curiously when she began to push aside the green disaster with the tip of her finger.

"Do you want to eat or not?" she returned, taking her bowl of purple food and dumping a good portion of it on the side.

With a look of disgust etching his face, Milan shook his head. "That stuff doesn't look much better." His matted black hair moved slightly with each shake.

Trika took another heaping spoonful and shoved it in her mouth. "It tastes _sweet_, just like me," she smirked, taking the palm of her hand and giving the side of his face a good swat. "Now eat up, sweetheart!"

Milan hesitantly complied, swirling the goop around in his mouth. It actually didn't taste all that bad, and it was definitely better than whatever was being served on the line. He wouldn't let her know that, of course. As he brought the spoon out of his mouth, he inspected it for leftovers. "You remind me of my sister," he mused.

"_Pesky_ little sister?" Trika hoped all too eagerly.

"Little sister," he agreed, then turned his gaze toward the front double doors. Lieutenant Muir and Stone had just entered, and they were heading toward the food line. "Do you think we should warn them?"

She shook her head. "No. Muir just gives me a bad feeling, like we're about to be ordered around by a dictator. As for Stone..." Apparently, the two other intrusion team members checked out the food and thought better of taking any. Both were headed toward their table. "Let's just say it takes one to know one."

*****

It didn't look appetizing, but at least it was something. Captain Ski began to fish around in a particularly gooey tray to find a decent piece of meat when a sudden _splat_ caught his attention.

A spoonful of brown muck had made its way onto his plate. He looked up slowly and made a face. "What _is_ this stuff?" he asked a grinning Sergeant Bullwinkle.

"It's good for you, sir," Bullwinkle said. "Eat it. My great-grandpoppa got that recipe from a dude with no legs and a big splotch of hair on his forehead. My great-grandpoppa gave the recipe to my grandpoppa, my grandpoppa gave the recipe to my poppa, my poppa gave the recipe my CO over in Special Forces, my CO gave the recipe to my XO, my XO gave the recipe to the ops sarge, the ops sarge gave the recipe to the weapons sarge, the weapons sarge gave the recipe to my drill sarge, and my drill sarge gave it to me. That's right, boss, I was the cookie for the 1st Special Forces Division, and only thirteen of them died from intestinal disease. A court martial proved I'm innocent. Now eat that crap or I'll shove it down yer throat! It gives ya nineteen essential vitamins and minerals. Adds ten years to yer life!" Bullwinkle threw another heaping pile onto Ski's plate.

At that moment, Kevin could only be glad that Bullwinkle was on the other side of the table or else he might have thrown a punch at the man. He was rather in awe, however, of how Bullwinkle might have survived the New Republic all these years. "You've got Special Forces training _and_ you're a cook?"

Bullwinkle nodded, then turned to serve Jaren Kai something he called a Sloppy Joe before the sniper could run away.

Kevin couldn't believe it. "Well, I was waiting on Intel to send us a cook, but if you want to take over, the job is open." Ski knew that Bullwinkle was probably pretty harmless compared to the schmuck the High Council would probably send in his place.

The oddly disgusting man thought for a moment. "Well, I ain't really cooked much since I fell out o' my last squad. Some dude blew up my Winnebago and I got creamed on another starfighter."

Ski couldn't comprehend most of the words, but it didn't really matter. "Well, congrats. You're Talon Squad's permanent cook."

"Okay. I hope ya like Sloppy Joes, Cap'n!" Bullwinkle replied, just as Talon Three, Kendrick Quinn, fell over after getting a taste of the coleslaw. "Medic!"

*****

Just as he was getting comfortable in the mess hall, Stone heard the cry of "Medic!" go up.

_You'd think I could get at least a bite down before something goes wrong_, he thought. Glancing down at the mess on his plate, which Trika had _insisted_ he try for her, he reconsidered. "A welcomed reprieve," grumbled Stone, standing and walking two tables over to see Quis, her normally anxious expression intensified, attempting to help her new friend.

Kendrick had been floored, but he appeared all right. It would be reasonable to take him to the medical floor just in case, though.

"Thanks," the pilot mumbled. He still seemed slightly traumatized from his experience. "I'm too young to die."

"Come on, flyboy," Stone laughed as he hauled Kendrick to his feet. "Let's get you someplace less hazardous to your health."

*****

Kevin thought he had found someplace away from the commotion of the mess hall to eat his lunch in peace. Before he could take his first bite, however, he noticed the tall form of one of his leaders nearby, awaiting permission to sit down.

He didn't mind, though. "Have a seat, Jaren." He gestured across the table and took a bite of some sort of meat sandwich.

The officer was taken aback by Ski's casual attitude and use of his first name. Sitting down, he grimaced at what was on his plate.

"How did your team meeting go?" Kevin asked, never looking up from his tray.

Swirling his soup absently and avoiding his Sloppy Joe, Jaren searched for the correct and proper words. "Well, sir... you know how you said that... uh... well, this whole thing is _mysterious_, right?" He waved his arms around as Kevin had done during their first meeting the day before.

The captain had put down his sandwich. "Continue."

"Something is amiss with the partnering of your two snipers, I believe."

Kevin took a sip of the water he had brought with him. His slight, ironic grin was followed by a chuckle. "I know little more than the fact that you two know each other. Am I to assume that there is more to Jaren Kai and Telia Aris than meets the eye?"

Jaren set his face into stone and composed his words carefully. "Well, there _was_. Sir, Aris and I were a sniper team for the 527th Special Forces. A sniper needs very good information if he is to take correct action. He also can't concentrate on both the shot and distant surroundings. That's what a spotter is for." He paused and took a drink of water. His mouth had gone suddenly dry. "_Aris_ was my spotter on many of those missions. We would trade off jobs occasionally, and we were very good. Morbid traditions aside, we were on the top of the kill charts for six months straight and decorated three times." He hesitated. "We worked very closely on missions for long periods of time and eventually became... _involved_, but it didn't work out."

The smile had never left Kevin's face. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"That's the thing, though. They want us to bring up the past and tear apart what you're trying to put together."

Kevin paused, again taking his sandwich in hand. "Jaren, I hate to admit it, but the new slicer, Trika, was right. Ninety percent of this squad is in place because they are the most qualified to tear the Talons apart." The man took a bite of his meal before putting it down for good. "I've never told anyone else this, but _one_ solid failure at this squadron gives the Intelligence High Council the ultimate right to dishonorably discharge me."

"I can request a transfer," the other announced even though he didn't fully comprehend the reasons for the setup. Why the IHC would want Kevin Ski out of New Republic service was beyond his knowledge.

Ski shook his head. "I need you _both_, Lieutenant. Your issues can be fixed. You were that good with the 527th, and you'll be that good again. We're due for more training this afternoon, but the evening is yours to do with as you please. I'd suggest some words make their way to the surface and we seal this whole ordeal for good."

"Yes, sir," Jaren said, not entirely excited about the prospect of sitting down with Telia yet again to resolve their problems. Come to think of it, he wasn't really excited about lunch, either. "I'll see you at training this afternoon, sir." He stood, tray in hand, and headed for the garbage chute nearest the double doors.

Kevin watched his lieutenant throw his entire lunch down the trash and briefly wondered if he had made a mistake by assigning Bullwinkle to the duties of the squadron's cook.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three: "You're a stupid Talon, like the rest of us!"**_

"All right, ya grunts. Y'all understand all relay and obstacle course requirements?"

Most of the group had no qualms about the instructions, knowing that most questions would be ignored anyway or answered in an undecipherable manner by the most esteemed Sergeant Bullwinkle. "Why are we _all_ training on the sixth floor?" Kaiba Cloudrifter dared to ask. "Wouldn't some Talons be better placed in the sims or at the shooting range?"

Sergeant Bullwinkle scrunched up his nose at the question. "Y'all are a team, ain't ya?"

"Sort of," Telia Aris mumbled under her breath, aiming her particular hatred toward Jaren.

Captain Ski spoke up from the far left, where he would be competing with his own group. "There will be times and places where everyone will be needed on ground, and there will be times and places for your specialty. If you have to substitute for someone on a particular mission, I don't want you to be unprepared. I'm setting a standard of excellence for everyone in this squadron. By meeting it, you will be among the elite the New Republic has to offer."

There were a few groans, but most of his Talons were more than ready for a challenge. He also knew that more than a few desired to annihilate their teammates in the actual race and were therefore very eager to begin.

Ski could only hope that this race would bring about more camaraderie and fewer rifts. Most of his planning of the actual training counted on it.

"Take yer mark, fours," Bullwinkle grunted, the signal that the fourth person in each division should line up first. The third and second person would follow, and the leader of each group would finish the race for their team.

"I don't see the point in any of this," Quis Heartilly grumbled, taking her place at the head of the operations team line. Gripping the relay stick tighter, she gazed at the woman next to her, Mekial Yrisar. How she wished she could be as bold and as open as that woman! Mekial was jumping up and down, excited to win the first round for the support team.

Ty Flynn, point man for the second operations team, could only half-heartedly attempt to joke about the competition to his left. Milan Lirac, the silent and dangerous Kiffar, appeared ready to either win the race or kill someone, all for the glory of the intrusions team. Or perhaps because he just wanted to kill someone. His arm muscles looked flexed, but another look at the relaxed warrior silenced that idea. Milan probably looked _that_ muscular day and night, working out _or_ resting.

Bullwinkle made sure the fours were set and, without fanfare or warning, blew his whistle to begin the race.

The distinction of talent was evident just on the sprint to the ropes course. Milan took the lead without breaking a sweat, flipping the relay baton into the side pocket of his uniform and heading at full speed toward the ropes course and foam pit below. Leaping forward from the lip of the pit, Milan skipped an entire set of ropes before grabbing another in the middle of the course. Right behind him was Mekial Yrisar, who was not able to leap as far, but was certainly able to swing as fast, almost catching up to the determined Kiffar.

Behind the two leaders was Ty, who unfortunately hadn't acted upon the whistle immediately and had fallen behind to the point that he would probably not catch up. Quis trailed last, but was keeping up just fine. The deciding move was Ty's ability to think quickly and tuck his team's baton into his belt before jumping toward the ropes. Quis couldn't seem to keep hers in her pocket and ended up having to bite the stick and carry it across the ropes in her mouth. As she landed on the other side of the course, she let loose a curse more loudly than she would have liked and drudgingly continued onward.

Milan could hear Mekial's every footstep and every labored breath, but he had to admit that she was an unwavering competitor who would not give up. Milan approached the series of hurdles as if he had run professional track, not even faltering at the height differences and the occasional trap just beyond the hurdle. Mekial, as athletic as anyone in the squad, performed superbly and had actually gained five steps on the first place position.

Ty Flynn and Quis Heartilly were not so fortunate. The two tripped up several times and were unable to get into the rhythm of hurdling and running before they had almost reached the end.

The last portion of the course was an open maze. The forced pattern of running had all four Talons on their toes, and some had quicker reflexes than others. Milan continued his amazingly swift run, Mekial was forced back a little, and Ty and Quis actually made up for lost time. The four were sent zigzagging through an absurd pattern of blocks until the path opened up to the end of the run.

"Come on, _slacker_!" Trika called to Milan. She was the next in line for the intrusions team. Trika and a few of the others in line had tossed out some cheers for their teammates, but she by far had been the loudest, jeering playfully and encouragingly. He followed the rules step-by-step, reaching forward with his baton and handing it off to Trika, who took off without more than a split-second pause to tuck the stick into her uniform.

Right behind Milan came Mekial, who, in her rush to catch up, had handed the baton to Rubi Jais and tripped into the large Kiffar, who fell onto the mat quite loudly.

Kevin instinctively moved to step between the two, not knowing if that particular incident had angered Milan beyond reason. He didn't have a weapon on him, but looking at the large mass on the floor made him long for the comfort of one.

Mekial looked as if she would literally faint before the imposing Kiffar. Milan, however, slowly flipped over and offered a slight smile and his hand. "Good run," he congratulated her quietly. The relief was visible even from the other end of the training room. The two got up just in time to see Kendrick Quinn, recovering from lunch, and Rinin Altura sprinting toward the ropes course.

Trika Adair had snatched the lead from Milan and never looked back, athletically charging headlong into the ropes and quickly advancing toward the hurdles. She was an odd-looking female anyway, but it was even odder to see someone _enjoying_ the thrill of running as fast as he or she could possibly run.

Rubi stayed very close to first place, never falling too far behind before stretching herself to run harder and faster. Poor Kendrick, it seemed, had never gotten over that afternoon's coleslaw. He trailed Rinin by a considerable distance, and by the time he reached the agility maze, all three of his competitors were already crossing the line and passing batons to teammates.

Stone waited patiently, anxious to continue the intrusion team's wild lead. Trika held out the baton and ran completely through the course, passing along her momentum and nearly pushing Stone over. The combat expert and medic thought it _very kind_ of her to help him along and, in response, gave a sharp tug on the stick, sending the Chinaési female flying forward onto the mats. Stone turned slightly and managed a good look at her as he charged ahead. Trika's narrowed eyes and steaming face made him laugh heartily before turning around for good and lunging for the ropes course. Somehow he knew _that_ would come back to bite him.

Kaiba Cloudrifter and Telia Aris could have linked arms and run the rest of the course together. Not about to let the other ahead, both women raced as fast as possible, and it was clear that they were taking the obstacle course seriously. Telia entertained the thought of pushing Kaiba into the foam sea underneath the ropes, but she thought it might cost her team the race and perhaps a night of kitchen duty. The last thing that Telia wanted was to see Sergeant Bullwinkle late at night.

Danya cursed herself for being the operations team hacker. So far behind, she would never catch up to the intrusions team unless Stone and Lieutenant Muir fell dead before the finish line. The other teams were doing well also. _But the operations team?_ Just as in her attempts at lunchtime conversation, Danya found herself carrying more than her fair share of the burden. "Go team," Danya muttered sarcastically, jumping past a hurdle.

Jane Muir's team had already dubbed her a sadistic dictator, and although they weren't aware that she knew that little fact, she was perfectly happy with the title. Jane grasped the baton tightly and ran hard, never looking back and confident that the support and operation teams would not be able to catch her.

There was a good reason the intrusions team had been chosen as they had.

Jaren Kai jumped off the line with amazing speed and stamina, proof of his experience in the training room. Jaren had participated in the Imperial Games as a teenager and was still in incredible shape from training as a sniper with the New Republic military. All in all, it was apparent that Lieutenant Kai was one of the best-trained and athletic members of Talon Squad.

Kithera Rinani desperately wanted to win, but found her hope of even catching Jaren a very fleeting idea. She would have to personally murder Ty herself for not taking the race just a little more seriously.

Back at the starting line, Kevin Ski grabbed the baton from Danya and had taken off for the other teams. It was a far-fetched attempt, but Ski was definitely going to give the race his strongest and most competitive try. Kevin did not slow even though the operations team was in last place.

The race became uncomfortably tight toward the end, with both Jane and Jaren not willing to lose to the other. Both turned the last corner and sprinted for the end, knowing that their teams were counting on them and would probably harm them if they lost the race. As close as the race was, however, the intrusions team had collectively given Jane the edge to finish first. Jaren was only a split-second behind.

Kithera and Kevin charged ahead, catching up for a bit of the lost time. The second operations team finished third, ten seconds behind Jaren, and Kevin brought up the operations team's last place finish, three seconds behind Kithera.

Kevin took a look at his squad. Some were winded, some were smiling, and some were _completely_ infuriated. The intrusions team members were exchanging pats on the back, but little more. The support team congratulated each other excitedly. It was nearly expected for Intrusions to win, but to come so close to beating them was an awesome feat.

"Now what the _kriff_ was _that_ supposed to accomplish?" Kaiba complained loudly. Kevin knew she was frustrated with her assigned team and would need some work on her attitude. In fact, he made it a point to remember to see the second operations team later that evening. He had heard from Kithera that their meeting was somewhat of a disappointment. Ty, Rinin, and Kaiba wouldn't shut their mouths, pay attention, or take anything seriously, let alone offer anything helpful to a conversation.

Kevin's operations team was a different lot. It seemed that Kendrick and Quis had unfortunately expected the worst from their new assignment and refused to get to know anyone else. They both needed an attitude adjustment. Well, maybe Ken needed his stomach pumped first. He knew Danya was unhappy, but she would be all right. The red flush in her cheeks amplified her wordless opinion of her team.

"Well, I'll be," Bullwinkle said, chewing on some form of straw stick while musing on the results with wonder. "The intrusions team won!"

Kevin gave the man his fifth odd look for the day. Stepping forward, he held up his hands for everyone to quiet down. "Good work, teams," he began, pleased with the general outcome. "I'm excited to see that many of you took this seriously and prepared mentally for such a task. This was not just an exercise of the body. Some of you are experiencing for the first time what it means to be a team, and some of you aren't embracing the call to be leaders in your positions. I'm not looking for laborers or minions. I'm looking for teammates and leaders.

"I want you all to be friends."

Many of the squad understood and nodded. A few were already beginning to talk more with other Talons, actually. There were even some who were experiencing friendships with other races for the first time. The Talons held only a trio of different races and species, but he knew it would take some work to create an atmosphere of tolerance and equality. All in all, the Talons were going to have to make the best out of being Talons. They hadn't been placed in this situation to be friends, but it was going to have to be done.

"Awww, isn't that sweet," an amusing voice cut through the mood again. "Let's _all_ be _friends_." Trika pranced around in a small circle and blew kisses to everyone.

A collective chuckle came from the group. Kevin raised an eyebrow her way and stopped her antics with a harsh stare. "Mock me again and I'll see to it that you have kitchen duty for the next week," he threatened jokingly, a smile forming yet again on his face. He was grateful that at least his group was laughing.

"That's all for today, Talons. I hope that some of this friendly competition has created a relaxing atmosphere for you," Kevin ventured to say, watching a particular few sneer at him. "Then again, I know the intensity of competition can make tensions between members flare, so you may take the rest of the evening to spend amongst each other. Some of you will be spending that time via kitchen duty, and you know who you are. Sergeant Bullwinkle will meet you in the mess hall after dinner. I would also like to see the second operations team in my office on the first floor one standard hour after dinner."

Ty scrunched his face up. "Well, _I_ sure didn't do anything."

Rinin glared his way. "The act of your breathing is extremely painful to behold. Please stop."

Kaiba scowled at her teammate. "Shut up, _schutta_," she spat viciously, using a Twi'lek curse in an effort to make him even angrier.

Rinin stepped forward threateningly before Kithera grabbed his arm and held him in place. The strength in both her arm and her voice was surprising. "You'd be wise to remain where you are," she quietly informed him, summoning every bit of leadership experience she had to deal with his attitude. "We're all in enough trouble as it is. We don't need our team holding back the rest of the squad."

Kevin stood, watching the turn of events intently. Kithera was handling the situation well, and by the look of things, Rinin wouldn't dare push any further. The entire squad was staring harshly at him. "Again, those of you with kitchen duty will meet in the mess hall and Talons Thirteen though Sixteen will report to my office. Be ready tomorrow for some fun at the shooting range and sims. Report at dawn." He took another look around and, despite a few exceptions, couldn't be more pleased. "Dismissed."

The responses varied greatly, with more deserting their teams than not. A few friends hung around for another couple of seconds before leaving together, and a couple of the Talons had stayed in place, apparently waiting to speak with Captain Ski. Danya, Jaren, and Kithera eagerly stood while Ski finished up a few quick instructions to Sergeant Bullwinkle. Somehow, however, he already knew their complaints and comments, their needs and questions. Answering would be the tough part, but not on Kevin's end. No, _listening_ to his responses would require patience and discipline, two items that the majority of his squadron lacked.

Kevin still had a long way to go before he could properly claim even the smallest of victories.

*****

"I think it's still alive."

"Was this on the menu tonight?"

Rinin rolled his light blue eyes and tossed another cup into Ty Flynn's rinsing tank. "If you ladies would shut up and help out, we would be out of this situation much sooner."

"We'd be better off if our fifth and sixth _jolly_ helpers would show up," Rubi grumbled, taking care to slowly pour the leftover food into containers and not onto the floor. As much as she would have liked to spill the entire load for Trika to mop up, she also knew that the longer it took them all to collectively clean the mess hall, the longer they all would have to stay.

"Telia's probably late, as usual, but I think Danya may be getting herself into more trouble with Captain Ski," Trika guessed, remembering the elevated voices coming from the end of the fourth floor hallway just before dinner. Brushing her mop across the floor, she stopped at a particularly dark area. "This spot should be labeled a biohazard."

The double doors burst open, as if on cue. Quietly fuming, Danya slunk in and grabbed the nearest bucket and towel. Without a word, she slapped the towel down on the first table and began scrubbing with more force than was really necessary.

"I take it your discussion with Captain Ski was not productive," Rubi prodded.

Danya dunked the dirty towel again and proceeded to the second table. "I'd prefer not to talk about it," she mumbled. Her mass of shoulder-length dark blond hair fell forward to half-cover her face, but it couldn't conceal the noticeable redness of her cheeks. Several of the other Talons exchanged glances, some sympathetic and others smug.

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then," Rubi surmised, correctly if rather unnecessarily. "What were you arguing about, anyway?"

A bit of an edge slipped into Danya's voice. "I _said_ that I don't want to talk about it." The young hacker stared down hard at the table she was cleaning, but she didn't seem to see it at all. Under her breath, she added, "I swear, that man is impossible..."

Rubi handed the last pot to Rinin, who accepted it with a sneer. The cluttered kitchen area was almost done. "He seems nice enough, if you believe in everything he says and are willing to comply," she offered, perhaps her first polite gesture of the week.

"Easy enough for you to say," Danya muttered, scrubbing more forcefully with each sentence. "You're not stuck with him as your partner on the operations team from _hell_."

"Oh, come on. It can't be _that_ bad," Ty said, ever optimistic. He paused before adding, "At any rate, it can't be worse than what any of the rest of us have to put up with!" He chuckled. It seemed that almost everything about the Talons was a joke to him. Danya was sure that he wasn't the only one who felt that way, but she wasn't laughing.

"Maybe not, but that doesn't exactly make it easier." Danya dipped the towel back into the bucket and wrung it out, imagining in a brief fit of pique that it was a certain captain's neck she was wringing instead. "I'm supposed to be hacking on missions, and I can't rely on my team to hold up their end. I can't even rely on my team to hold up their end of a conversation." Everyone knew that Danya was referring to Kendrick and Quis, the quietest of all the Talons.

Trika continued to mop the floor around the tables. "You are where you are for a purpose." She sounded wise for perhaps the first time in her life. "Leave the mission hacking and slicing to the _experts_." A fairly large and evil grin made its way to her face, grating on Danya's already raw nerves. It was clearly apparently to everyone else that Trika was itching to worsen the situation.

Danya raised her gaze from the table to level an irate stare at her fellow hacker and the only other competition that she might have had in the squadron. "_Expert_?" she countered, waving her towel vaguely in Trika's direction. "Expert at _what_, exactly? Shooting your mouth off? What would someone like _you_ know of my specialty, anyway?"

The Chinaési female stopped mopping and turned back toward Danya, her emerald eyes sharply narrowed; there seemed to be a glitter of real anger there. "Someone like _me_? _Someone like me_? An ignorant savage, you mean?"

Danya frowned, knowing enough details of Trika's heritage to realize why the woman seemed so offended by what she believed Danya to be implying. "That's not what I meant..."

Trika cut her off before she could finish clarifying. "I know enough of your specialty to have been placed here," she retorted, a devilish smile forming on her face as her quick mind formulated its return-trip sarcasm. "As for shooting my mouth off, it would seem that you have some expertise in the area, yourself, or you wouldn't be _here_, would you?"

Danya's own eyes narrowed, her soapy hands coming to rest on her hips. "I spoke up on _your_ behalf at the briefing. See if I make _that_ mistake twice."

If Trika felt any sense of reproof, it certainly didn't show on her face, which bore an insufferable smirk. "Hey, it's definitely not my problem if you never learned how to mind your own business."

The smug comment, no worse than any that had preceded it, was the snapping point for Danya's already badly frayed nerves. Without warning, she tossed her towel aside and began a swift march toward Trika. It was clear to all five Talons from her body language that she had had quite enough of Trika's nonsense. Her hands on her hips had clenched into fists, and she found herself having to fight a surprisingly strong urge to use them to remove that infuriatingly cocky little smile from her rival's face.

As she approached the Chinaési woman, Danya still wasn't entirely sure what she intended to do with her fists, but the combination of a wet floor and gravity made the decision for her. The rest of the Talons saw Danya slip and pitch forward into Trika, knocking them both to the sudsy ground. The group attempted weakly to suppress hearty laughter at the hackers' predicament.

"I forgot to mention that I have this _terrible_ habit of mopping myself into a corner," Trika quipped from the floor as Danya attempted to disentangle herself. Under different circumstances, Danya might have also bee able to see the humor of the absurd situation herself. But any hopes of laughing it off were dashed in the next moment as Trika's mop, which had so far remained upright in a precarious lean against the nearest table, fell over, its handle striking Danya in the back of the head with a sharp _crack_ just as she was beginning to push herself back up. Danya lost her balance and fell back onto Trika, who had likewise just begun to sit up. Their skulls collided painfully.

In the frenzied thrashing of limbs that followed, Danya's elbow connected with Trika's ribs, and Trika's foot found Danya's shin. It was difficult to say which of the two hackers had thrown the first intentional punch, but it was possible that each one believed, at least initially, that she was acting in self-defense as the struggle quickly escalated into an outright brawl.

Ty, Rubi, and Rinin, jaws stretching downward, felt they should call Sergeant Bullwinkle to break up the fight. All three ignored the impulse and instead continue to watch as the combatants' moves steadily progressed from defensive to vindictive, with Danya and Trika exchanging petty hits and kicks on the floor. Ty began to point and laugh.

"Don't tell any of the guys we saw this," Rinin told Rubi, his eyes never leaving the fight. "They might get angry that I did not alert them to this." Rubi rolled her eyes at the male and turned back to her work.

Scowling, Telia entered the room just as Danya grasped a handful of Trika's red braids and turned that ridiculous face towards her awaiting fist. The slicer was one step ahead, though, and her own punch landed on Danya's left jaw. Trika paid for it dearly with a kick to the chest that took her breath away. Another punch hit Trika in the nose. Telia could only continue to gawk at the battle scene.

Two massive and filthy hands grasped the two females by the neck and lifted them to their feet. The putrid smell coming from behind them could only identify the man as Sergeant Bullwinkle.

"Fightin', are we?" he snorted, and the two fighters stopped struggling, apparently seized with fear or perhaps paralyzed by Bullwinkle's potent stench.

"No." Trika had the fortitude to speak up, her hand reaching to her lip to check for blood. "Danya was instructing me on the proper way to stretch before strenuous exercise and things got a little out of hand." As if to prove her point, she sloppily wiped her bleeding nose clean.

Bullwinkle might not have been born the sharpest of his family, but he could definitely catch the sarcasm dripping off her words. His hand still tight around her neck, he lightly and playfully shook Trika around, a disturbing smile on his face. "Oh, I can tell we're goin' to be seeing a lot of each other, Miss Adair. You, me, an' th' mess hall!"

Trika jerked away and quickly attempted to rub the grease from the back of her neck. "Please don't threaten me so," she mumbled, giving one last exaggerated wink at Danya, who was nursing a bruised forehead, a sore jaw, and a slightly swollen bottom lip, not to mention a great deal of resentment about a great many things.

Bullwinkle had turned his attention to the latecomer. "You jus' can't seem to get anywhere on time, Miss Aris."

The tall, slender woman merely stood there, ready to take whatever punishment was coming. She apparently was not the only one in a foul mood, however, so she offered a somewhat trite explanation. "I was held back by my team leader. Lieutenant Kai and I have some issues that are more pressing than most."

"I don't care that much," Bullwinkle informed her with typical nonchalance, or maybe he was just clueless. "My kitchen and mess hall will be cleaned. I don't think yer teammates appreciate it very much, though, that they had ta clean it fer ya."

"I had pressing matters -"

"You and everyone else!" Rinin interrupted, his own frustration spilling over. "Ty and I were due in Captain Ski's office fifteen minutes ago!"

"That's your own problem!" Telia shot back. "If you'd keep your mouth shut and stop acting like a child, you'd -"

"Does _anyone_ in this squad have the right to say someone _else_ is acting like a child?" Rubi scoffed, only adding fuel to the fire. "You're not better than anyone else here, you know. You're a stupid _Talon_, like the rest of us!"

Bullwinkle raised a greasy arm and spoke loudly enough to be heard by all. "I think it best that ev'rybody keep quiet and finish cleaning before I begin handing out 'fresher duty." As predicted, the six misfits turned silent, but there was no sorrow or regret, only anger. "Captain Ski will be alerted 'bout this behavior and y'all can expect to be contacted later t'night."

All six Talons picked up the nearest tool and began to clean yet again.

*****

By the time Telia returned to her quarters, she was exhausted, but no less angry. Images of Jaren and their latest argument raced through her head, punctuated occasionally by Rubi's "stupid Talon" quip and Bullwinkle's threats of further work detail.

She slapped the door release mechanism with more force than was really needed. When the door didn't immediately close behind her, she slammed it again. The reverberation of her attack on the offending panel seemed to clear her head somewhat, and the sharp pain in her palm actually had a soothing effect.

Then her eyes fell on the solid black shape of the case containing her customized sniper rifle. Her mind immediately returned to Jaren. How could he be such an _idiot_? He had barged in on her practice time at the range that afternoon, claiming to want to fix the problems between them, to help her "work through her feelings." It was just like him, always trying to come to the rescue, as if _she_ was the one who needed help.

And what did he know about solving their differences? He was completely clueless when it came to her feelings. There was no way he could understand what she was feeling: the anger that burned in the back of her eyes when she saw him, the gut-wrenching sense of loss she felt when she thought of him.

After all this time apart, thinking that she had her life back together again, they were right back where they parted ways. They were assigned to the same squad. They were _expected_ to act as a sniper team. Telia pressed her palms to her face and let out what started as a sigh. It quickly turned into a scream of frustration.

As she dropped her hands back to her sides, the exhaustion of the day finally set in and she collapsed into a heap of aches and pains on her bunk. She still had a hundred things that needed to be accomplished before tomorrow, but they could wait. She made a halfhearted attempt to kick off her boots before the world drifted away from her and she fell into a troubled sleep.

*****

Kendrick leveled his A-280 Blastech Sharpshooter rifle at the disposable targets lining the wall. He squeezed the trigger, the rifle's stock jerking against his shoulder. The report of the shot bounced off the walls of the shooting range, but Ken didn't notice. His entire focus was on the rifle, on the targets before him. He sighted down the barrel again.

Ken figured he would be spending a lot of time around the shooting range. It wasn't the most luxurious place in the Talons' base, and it even lacked any sort of electronic monitor and target combination. It was quiet, though. It was out of the way. He had already seen Jaren and Telia around, but they had ironically left in foul moods after an argument. Other than the two snipers, though, Kendrick had been the only one practicing before tomorrow's shooting drills.

It gave him time to think and be alone, just the way he liked it.

_Aim. Fire. Reload._

Training was going well, he supposed, although his stomach was still twisting at the memory of Bullwinkle's coleslaw. So far, the intrusions team had been heavily favored in competition. He gave a brief chuckle at the idea of tomorrow's exercises, some which would give him and his teammates more of an advantage. The intrusions team would be hard pressed to fly and shoot as well as the other teams.

_Aim. Fire. Reload._

Kendrick had spent some time in the lounge, inspecting schematics of the ships and fighters that the Talons would be utilizing. Several huge datapads of every detail had been strewn across the lounge tables to give him better angles of each curve and corner. He had taken a liking to several of the modified A-wings that would be coming in, and he figured he'd be able to modify them more with the help of Quis and maybe that Kaiba woman.

_Aim. Fire. Reload._

The Sharpshooter felt very familiar in his hands. Captain Ski had issued a good many standard blasters to the squad, but Kendrick preferred his own equipment. Well, a lot of Talons did. The A-280 was kept locked away in his room, away from the other Talons, and had hardly ever been used until today. There had been a few missions with Pash Cracken's A-wings, but those were days in the past that he would just as soon like to forget.

Ken lowered the rifle. One of the Human-shaped targets on the far wall had detached itself and was moving on a ceiling track toward him. When it came within range, he tore it off to examine it more closely. Scorched black spots covered the chest area of the figure and proceeded further into the head. He allowed himself a smile, crumpling up the target and tossing it into the awaiting trash bin.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four: "We have to make this work."**_

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Jaren straightened his uniform once more. He wasn't really trying to impress anyone, but he _did_ want to appear responsible and confident. He was sweating, though. Wiping the wetness from his brow, he brought his right hand up to gently rap on the door. To his surprise, the door opened almost immediately, and every preparation quickly fled in light of the situation.

"Hey, Tel," he greeted his sniping partner at her door, also surprised that she wasn't too dirty from kitchen duty. The woman did not seem pleased to see him. "Were... uh, you about to go out or something?"

The beautiful and dangerous sniper played aimlessly with her brownish hair while leaning on the doorframe. "I heard you outside my door five minutes ago and came to see what you were about."

Jaren could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. "Oh, uh... well, I came to talk..."

"Look." She tossed a strand of hair back and stood up to full height, ironically not much shorter than Jaren. "What happened between us is _over_. Done with. I have _no_ desire to revisit our mistake."

Jaren unconsciously tried to calm her with a hand on her shoulder, but the angry woman jerked away. "Tel," he pleaded, "we have to make this work. We _need_ to talk."

"I don't _want_ to make this work," she spat back quickly. "Every time I see you I relive your sniping obsession." One hand on her control panel, she attempted to close the door before he noticed.

Jaren's palm slapped against the sliding door and sent it back. "I'm not talking about _us_," he clarified, hoping to soothe Telia. "We were both under a lot of pressure and I regret a lot of the actions I had to take."

Telia snorted. "You didn't _have_ to take any of those actions."

"I took them to advance our team!"

"And it hurt _me_ in the end! You're such a jerk!" Telia attempted once more to close the door, but to no avail.

"Please, let me explain -"

Her blaster out of range, Telia instead reached behind her for the nearest weapon and prepared to launch it at her former love interest.

*****

Ty Flynn and Rinin Altura walked by just as Jaren stumbled back a couple of steps. The attack gave Telia the needed time to close her door and lock it, leaving the two Talons to stare at their superior and the thrown weapon.

Jaren brought the pillow down slowly, not sure if he wanted to see those particular squadmates after such a display. The two seemed to be very mellow, however, and he briefly recalled their meeting with Captain Ski after kitchen duty. He nodded slightly to both of them. "I hope it's been a good evening for you both?" he asked, eager to take the attention away from himself and his altercation with Telia.

"We saw two of the females of the squad wrestling on the kitchen floor and had our faces singed by Captain Ski's hot breath," Rinin said with an unusual smile on his face. "The evening just couldn't have been better."

Ty voiced his agreement. "I'm just _exhausted_." He threw his hands into the air. The two secondary operations team members shared a laugh, and Jaren's confusion only doubled. As they continued toward their end of the hallway, he made a mental note to ask Ski sometime about his words to the unruly team.

"And did you see her face?" Rinin continued, picking up their conversation before the odd interruption. "That was absolutely classic!"

"Your face was almost as picturesque," Ty said with a grin. His gaze dropped to the ground as if in deep thought. "I clearly remember your eyes -"

Rinin held up a hand. "All right, all right. Remember, though, that we should all take the threat very seriously." That simple statement brought both Talons to chuckle once more. Ty was about to add yet another comment when another Talon greeted them.

"Hey, guys." Mekial waved to them, her huge smile melting away their feigned masculinity. She tapped a series of buttons to lock her door and then turned to give them her full attention. Ty and Rinin could see that she was dressed for the night. "How do you like things around here so far?"

Ty couldn't get past that smile... she was so disarming! There was something about her he found quite attractive. "So far so good," he said. "The second operations team has had a change of heart after tonight's events, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's competitions, whatever they might be."

Mekial threw him a twisted grin. "No more playing around for your division? I wouldn't have thought that you all would make the change so quickly."

The Twi'lek was quick to add his voice. "Change is very good. We only had to be threatened once."

The woman eyed them both with a curiosity, but she didn't pursue it. "Well, whatever competitions are in store for tomorrow, be sure that you watch for the support team. We're all kind of fired up to smack the intrusions team, but _you guys_ weren't even a question in our mind."

Ty gripped his chest as if he had just been wounded. "Ouch," he said, his sour face pouting. "I'll be sure to tell my team to just to lie down and die when we arrive tomorrow."

Mekial gave one last smile to her two squadmates. "Get a good night's sleep. You'll need it," she called, waved, and left them standing there. One in particular stared long after she rounded the corner and disappeared.

Rinin turned to his partner and hit him lightly on the shoulder. "You can pick up your jaw now."

Ty didn't bother turning his head. "She's intriguing."

The other snorted. "Oh, is that all?"

"No, seriously," Ty chuckled, dreamily envisioning the woman in midair. "I can't see anyone _not_ getting along with that woman. How can anyone be that happy all the time?"

"Well, I sure am going to learn." Rinin put on his best, cheesy smile.

Ty finally gave Rinin an odd look. "Are you sure you're not taking that threat a little too seriously?" he asked as the two turned once more for their rooms at the end of the hallway.

"I don't think so, and I don't want to find out after what happened tonight."

The two shared a final laugh for the night, one that only they could understand.

*****

Kevin Ski was up bright and early along with his squadron that next morning in the simulation room on the sixth floor. Many were still nursing wounded muscles and egos, but the majority was starting to get used to each other. Mekial was trying a little too hard to be friends with Rubi, he thought, but as he glanced their way, he noticed a private joke between the two. Perhaps Rubi would come around and become a part of the support team. Mekial might have achieved the impossible by making the other woman a friend.

Stone, Trika, and Milan all stood in a small group, away from the rest of the squad and from their leader, the mysterious Jane Muir. She was one of the sharpest of recruits, but she would not relax her stern face and serious attitude. And then there was the second operations team. Kithera's wide smile mirrored his own, and he knew that somehow that group would come out all right. Kaiba and Ty were arguing about something, but Rinin continually chuckled throughout the entire ordeal, a new sight if Kevin had ever seen one.

Captain Ski cleared his throat and ordered his group to come to attention. The formation was sloppy, at best, but all had quieted. Giving a quick scan of the line, he decided to correct a few matters from the start.

"Stand up straight," he ordered Kendrick and Quis, who stood at the front of the line. "I don't run a sissy squadron full of weak warriors." Ski continued to the support team. "Eyes forward," he told all of them, save for Lieutenant Kai, who was as perfect as an officer could be. "We are a unit. Everyone should be looking forward."

The intrusions team was next. "Stone, you may have a busy schedule as our medic, but your uniform should be cleaned _and_ pressed." Ski knew Stone desperately wanted to explain himself, but he kept going. "Adair, shine those shoes before our session this afternoon." Kevin paused before going to the second operations team. "Lirac, loosen up a bit," he said with a smile, and the squad returned a brief chuckle.

"Operations II, stop slouching," he could have instructed practically all of them, with the exception of Lieutenant Rinani, of course. With those final orders, he turned back and faced his entire group. "Let's all get some confidence about us, folks," he said. "The enemy out there does not know about your pasts, your quirks, your problems, or your issues with each other. The enemy will not care that you were not prepared, not disciplined, or not trained well. You may be an emotional wreck, an Imperial defector, or an irresponsible sap, but that will not stop the enemy from killing you and destroying this squadron. Make the choice now to train hard and discipline yourself. Know that while you train here, your enemies are plotting your demise."

If that didn't get their attention and their devotion, nothing would. He noticed some were standing even taller than when they had been corrected. "Today we will be journeying to the wonderful world of simulation and shooting. I hope you all have had time to investigate the lounge reading material and educate yourself on the types of craft we will be flying and riding. Our new toys should be delivered within the week, so be ready for an introduction to our home away from the Nest. Until then, feel free to check out what we have on our own roof. You'll be pleased to know that we've acquired several of your favorite machines, everything from the X-wings you started with to some A-wings and Y-wings. Many have been tricked out to the point that they function quite differently from what you have trained on. They're worth studying.

"I realize that not everyone is a pilot, let alone an expert, and that is fine. I am not expecting the intrusions team to beat my pilots in the sims." A few laughs ensued, especially from the intrusions team. He understood that all had flown in the past, but none of the intrusions team had done so more than a couple of times. "Pardon the expression, but there will be a 'crash course' in piloting for those particular members.

"Shooting range drills are for everyone. I expect that all of you will see some form of combat and will need to know how to shoot quickly, accurately, and be able to recharge or switch weapons immediately. We will be going over these same drills for the next few weeks because your enemy will not give you time to think about your next move. Therefore, we will practice until it is simply in your nature to do what needs to be done. Any questions?"

Danya shifted a tad and stepped forward. "Yes, Two?" Ski prompted his partner, who had seemed a bit subdued, not to mention more than a bit aloof toward Trika, since the previous night's kitchen detail.

"Sir, I saw Sergeant Bullwinkle practicing a lot of odd moves in the gym earlier this morning and I was wondering if he would be teaching us later tonight."

Ski punched in a couple of commands into his datapad and reviewed some specifics about the training. He made a particularly puzzled face and shook his head. "He will be teaching you something, although I don't know what these items have to do with survival techniques."

"Thank you, sir." Danya slipped back into line and bit her lip, a little disappointed with the answer to her question.

"Any other questions?"

Some of his team actually looked a little too frightened to ask whatever questions they might have had. When no one spoke up, Ski continued onward. "Intrusions team, to the simulators to your right. Everyone else, to the simulators on your left."

"Why does this keep happening?" Quis Heartilly grumbled, staring longingly at the intrusions team. She figured that she was not cut out for anything but engineering and that this would be yet another misadventure of large proportions. On the other hand, her partner Kendrick looked completely taken with the idea of simulation training. He was already climbing into his simulator pod and strapping himself in with a familiarity that bespoke experience.

Kevin instructed the intrusions team to begin training via a guided tour and a couple of lessons, then surprised many of his squadron by joining the other teams. Although many had somewhat expected the famous Kevin Ski to join them in the sims, their disbelief was still evident. A few looked forward to the challenge, particularly the pilots and veterans, but the rest grumbled curses at having been assigned to their particular team.

Kevin waited for the rest of his squadron to figure out where the controls were and how to get started with the basic program functions. "All right, folks," Kevin came through on a universal comlink. "Let's practice some technique. Some of you might consider yourselves 'Rogue-worthy,' and that's a nice thought. However, I want you all to be 'Talon-worthy,' and to do that, you've got to pass _my_ standards. Understood?"

The affirmative replies came back strong, even with a few key members attempting to hide their nervousness and inexperience. The sims came to life, projecting an open space environment, several standard leagues above what appeared to be Coruscant. "Your entrance scores prove that you all should be able to handle a little team-versus-team action. Leaders should communicate with their wingmen and make sure their team is the last standing. Any questions?"

Mekial growled in frustration. "And why isn't the intrusions team in here with us? I demand to have a chance at them later, sir."

"Eight, if those guys have to pilot us anywhere, we're all dead anyway," Ski answered. The entire squad, save for the commandos, had a laugh at the expense of the intrusions team. "You'll all get your chance to beat up on them later. We are an intelligence squadron, however, and the only flying they will be doing will relate to vehicles they commandeer on missions. They will be training extensively for those types of adventures. I want you all to avoid their form of transportation. Instead, I want you crisp on what we use and what your enemies will use."

After a brief pause, Ski readied his own craft. "Let's fly, Talons. Simulation exercise in five seconds." His comlink cut off, and suddenly, all team members were in communication with their own teams. The three division leaders began to bark out a seemingly endless string of coded assignments. Within a few seconds, they were able to watch in delight as the trained Talon X-wings took to different formations.

Both operations teams might have had a slight advantage in piloting skills, if not for the coordination of Jaren and Telia. While a little uncertain at the controls, the two snipers seemed to move in concert without thinking. Rubi and Mekial were not bad pilots themselves, and the combined effort quickly proved to be devastating. Choosing a tight offensive formation, the support team managed to wrap around the second operations team and let fly a couple of shots at an unshielded Rinin Altura, knocking him out early in the game. Kithera avoided the initial barrage and got off some shots of her own, but the support team had already flown off in search of other prey.

The flight controls, so natural in his hands, were a welcomed reprieve from the stress of everyday life. Kevin Ski knew his operations team would be able to fend off anything the support team could throw at them, even if Jaren and Telia were hotshots themselves. "Three, you ready to try out that 'formation' in the manual I gave you?" Kevin obviously referred to the more-than-risky section near the back of the Talon manual.

Kendrick's tone bordered on eagerness and excitement. "If Two and Four are ready, I say we go for it."

"Well," Talon Two, Danya, popped up, "I'm not planning on losing, so you'd better be ready."

Kevin waited for Quis to respond, but the shy woman merely brought her X-wing into line and awaited the order. Her lack of enthusiasm for the formation could prove fatal if this was something other than a sim. "Four, I want you to lend a hand to Three. Make sure he's covered while he's pulling this off. Two, you know what to do." On his mark, the X-wings formed up tightly and shot forward in a daring drive deep into the heart of the battle.

Kithera called for Kaiba and Ty to regroup, but it seemed the second operations team was a little rusty on its coordination. Rubi doggedly pursued Kaiba and Ty, and with some tight maneuvering around the operations team, broke hard to the right and scored a second hit for the support team. Kaiba screamed in frustration and pounded her controls just before the disturbing image of Sergeant Bullwinkle alerted her to the fact that she was dead. His intensely odd face was enough to make her scream at him as well.

_Just too easy_, Kendrick thought before he broke off, sending his fighter into an inverted dive below his group. He had particularly wanted to take out Ty Flynn, his main source of piloting competition, but he avoided the mistake of breaking formation to pursue him. Instead, Rubi found herself on the receiving end of his lasers, which knocked her from the sim. Curling back into formation, the operations team began a sweep of the area, eager for another turn at both the support and second operations teams.

Ty Flynn finally came back to Kithera just in time to meet Jaren, Telia, and Mekial, charging headlong against them. "What is he doing, Five?" Telia asked Jaren, curious as to what strategies everyone else was employing. So far, it seemed that no one had any clue about handling shields, let alone their heads while in battle. Telia prayed that she never had to support any of these psychos in space.

"He's loaded," Jaren said, remembering seeing Ty's insane pull-offs from the military archives. "I'm taking him out."

"Ty, what are you doing?" Kithera yelled, on the verge of losing her mind. Her team was completely chaotic. She snapped her thrusters to full power, hoping the support team would not catch Ty and take her down as well. "Answer me, Ty!"

The pilot wasn't listening, however. It was a tingling sensation he got in the heat of battle. Simulations always gave him the opportunity to explore it, because if he got hit or shot down, it wasn't as big of a deal. Embracing that tiny flare at the edge of his mind, Ty jerked his ship slightly and narrowly avoided four separate blasts from Danya and Quis, who had paired and come straight for him. His reaction time was shockingly fast, and his sharp left twist had caused a moment's hesitation in the rest of the gathered ships. Only Danya responded by throwing her fighter into a near ninety-degree vertical climb to get out of the way of the Kithera's fire, who was merely trying to keep up with Ty without getting herself killed.

Quis never saw the feint coming and was hit, but with luck, managed to get away with everything intact. She was shocked when Jaren's shots struck her twice and clipped her wing. The resulting explosion of Quis's ship rocked the remaining X-wings, who continued to exchange fire before Kevin and Kendrick came to ruin the party.

"How the _heck_ did he do that?" Ken flipped around to see Ty's fighter dive into a nearly-blind maneuver that would have killed anyone else in his position. "Lead, permission to engage?"

"Not without Two," Kevin called back, awaiting Danya's return from above. A slight look, however, revealed that Mekial and Telia, with Jaren close behind, were tailing her. "She can use the assistance right now, I'm betting."

As if on cue, Danya called in frantically. "Hey, umm, mind giving your favorite hacker a hand here?"

Kevin and Kendrick seemed to work together, rolling to come up on either side of the opposing force. Jaren had seen them coming and let back on his throttle just a tad, lining up for a direct shot at Kevin's aft shields. But a hunch and a proximity warning caused Jaren to shift hard to the right, and a shot from behind nearly scorched him. Ty Flynn was back.

The operations team successfully pulled Telia and Mekial off Danya's tail, but only for a brief moment before Ty interrupted the mess. Two of his shots knocked out her aft shields before she could maneuver away from him, and by that time, Telia was back and hungry for the kill. Danya was out within seconds.

It was not a complete victory, however. Kendrick did not hesitate in locking onto Mekial's fighter and working her shields hard. Kevin moved in for the kill, but Jaren was suddenly there, causing Kevin to swing back out of the way. Kendrick paid for his persistence with a hit, and he, too, had to relinquish his position.

"I'm going to hurt you if you don't tell me what you're doing!" Kithera called to Ty for the last time, just as Mekial hit her port side. Telia finished the job, leaving Ty as the last of the second operations team. Still, he didn't seem to notice or care.

"Nice flying, Eight," Telia complimented Mekial. The two seemed to be getting along nicely, at least during competition. Someone dedicated to making the lives of the other teams miserable could hold a special, friendly place in their hearts.

"Thanks for the follow-up," Mekial returned, ready for a couple more runs to victory. The two began to return to Jaren but were stunned by the flash of an explosion filling their viewports. The surprise of seeing Jaren vaped before their very eyes was alarming. The shooter? None other than Kevin Ski, a man who had more than a few "trophies" in his office for flying missions during the Rebellion, and a few promotions along the way, too.

He obviously had not forgotten how to fly.

"I'm coming around to -" Mekial began, seeing a familiar form pull up from her side. Ty was in pursuit. Knowing she was already in danger from her battle with Kendrick, she rerouted all of her power to her aft and starboard shields and prepared for the worst. She and Telia were both surprised when Kendrick returned to finish the job, attacking her from the left and taking her out. Telia barely escaped, high-tailing it out of the fight with warning lights flashing.

Unfortunately for her, Ty had another feeling of his and had let fly a couple of random shots in her general direction, which finalized the death of the support team. In a moment of frustration, Telia cursed loudly enough at Sergeant Bullwinkle to be heard throughout the entire sim room.

Unfortunately for Ty, his feeling hadn't compensated for the persistent Kevin Ski and Kendrick Quinn. Six shots later, the second operations team was out, and everything was finished in the simulators. The machines all powered down, spilling on the screen a series of statistics and awards for those who performed admirably. The three teams emerged from their crafts with a variety of emotions.

"That was most upsetting," Telia spat, calming herself by imagining her fist crunching through Ty Flynn's skull.

"We've got to do that again sometime," Ty eagerly suggested.

Danya brushed her dark blond hair back and threw it to the side. "Because getting blown out of the sky was just _so_ much fun..."

Kevin motioned for his group to gather around. Even though he had expected to win, he was more than a little disappointed with the turnout of events and was curious to see the statistics from the exercise. "We've got a lot of work to do, folks. I'm not quite sure whether I am pleased with _anyone's_ performance, but we're going to get better and learn to work together. There's not a lot I can teach you if you're not willing to cooperate with your team leader. I'll have the final results shortly and we'll go over what went wrong with _everyone_." Kevin made sure to emphasize that particular word. No one in his squad was without fault in this particular exercise. "Be prepared for shooting drills in one standard hour. Dismissed."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five: "You've got your work cut out for you, I'm taking?"**_

"I'm looking for accuracy _and_ speed," Ski announced once his squad had lined up for shooting drills. With a simple glance down the line he could tell who was ready for action, unfamiliar with basic firearms, or unsure of themselves totally. "You might be a fine shot, but if it takes you seconds to line it up, you will find yourself sporting a nice hole through your chest, or worse yet, your head."

Rinin elbowed his partner. "I was concerned he would mention _other_ body parts as being worse." He had tried to keep the comment quiet, but the majority of the squad had heard it anyway.

"We all know you don't have any of _those_," Trika jibed, charging the blaster in her hand and giving the Twi'lek an evil wink. A few chuckles ensued, but no one issued any threats. Unlike the past couple of trying days, the general atmosphere actually remained friendly.

Captain Ski cleared his throat, but it was unnecessary. His people were ready to determine whether they could hold their own in the shooting arena. "Operations, let's give this a whirl."

Taking his place beside Danya, Ski watched as the four Human-shaped targets came into view and settled fifteen meters in the distance. Kendrick and Kevin drew blasters almost at once and shot the typical three times before standing down. Danya and Quis followed suit, although Quis was a bit slow on the draw and ended the round solo. There was no need for the targets to come forward, for at such a distance, and with such shooters present, there was truly no need to get a closer look. Kendrick, Kevin, and Danya were superbly accurate, landing hits in the torso area and the kill zones on the head. Quis, on the other hand, while knowing a great deal about weaponry, had little experience in the _use_ of such machines. Her scores were not so defined. She would need a little work.

"All right, Support, let's see what you can do." The four members stepped up to the line and waited for the targets to come into view. Mekial gave a brief glance and smirk at Ty that let him know exactly which team would win the competition. The targets settled, and the four almost unanimously drew weapons. All three shots came out perfectly timed, and the end result was amazing. Jaren and Telia landed all three shots in the head with a sadistic pattern through the eyes and mouth. Rubi and Mekial practiced a head shot and two torso shots.

All in all, the support team was very accurate and very sharp.

"Intrusions, let's move," Ski ordered, particularly interested to see what kind of accuracy the specialized commando unit had. The targets came down and settled, and all four members drew blasters and fired. At the end of the session, there were more than a few questions left on everyone's lips.

Trika and Milan were not such bad shots, but there was definitely room for improvement. Somehow Trika had taken out a throat without really meaning to. Milan nailed his target's head on two shots and took off an ear on the third. With a little practice, Ski supposed both would be excellent shooters.

Jane's results only amplified her unusual talents and secrets. She was as good of a shot as the squad's snipers, all three shots centered in the middle of the face. However, the mystery came from Stone, the squad's combat expert. His target remained perfectly clean, leading him to take a closer look at his issued blaster.

"Did we happen to give you a wasted issue?" Ski asked, approaching the man to see if he could help. The commando was already taking the gun apart with expert handling.

"I was just shooting it yesterday," Stone grumbled, a little more than embarrassed. Inspecting the inner workings of the blaster, Stone was surprised to see a small disc interrupting the flow between chambers. While intelligence made him hesitate, curiosity got the best of him. Plucking the disc from its perch, Stone was quite literally shocked to receive a jolt right down his spine. The initial surprise made him jump, and his body spasmodically danced for a split-second.

Ski stepped back with a brief chuckle despite his efforts to hold it in. Stone had stopped shaking, and now that he was holding the disc, he could clearly make out the tampered areas and the sabotage of his weapon. Lifting his gaze from the object to his teammates, he eyed a couple of them squarely. The entire squad was filled with smiles and giggles.

"Yeah, yeah... laugh it up," Stone growled, shaking feeling back into his slightly burned hand. He began to reassemble the blaster together with a sure motion and eyed a few of his teammates. "I have a feeling I know which one of you did this, and payback from me is _not_ a pretty sight." After snapping the last two pieces together, he hefted the weapon, tilted parallel to the ground, and then began to fire as quickly as the chamber would recycle, emptying the entire energy pack in one go. When the noise had stopped, the target bore char marks all over the head and chest region, with one shot left for where a kneecap would be on a _Near-Human_. Stone holstered his weapon and rejoined Intrusions, smirking confidently at Trika, who wore only the most angelic and innocent expression.

Captain Ski nodded his approval. "Ops II," he called as the targets changed out, "show us what you've got."

It was more than a unique sight to see the second operations team step up to the shooting range with a bit of confidence. Perhaps Kithera had given them a pep talk in the hour between drills, but it appeared that their emotion and zest were a bit more permanent than the emotions caused by a rousing speech. The four took their places in line and waited until the targets settled before opening fire.

The initial round was over, and the results very good all around. Kithera gave a little shout of satisfaction after finding out that Ops II had practically tied with Support. Ty gave Mekial a cheesy smile. His team might not be pushovers after all.

"Good work, teams," Ski congratulated his squad. He was actually thrilled that everybody was at least decent at _something_. "We've been testing each unit to ensure that everyone is in the correct slot and will work well with the other members. Although we've had some tangles and some incidents, I'm positive each of you will work your hardest at being a team player and contributing to the larger cause."

Kendrick straightened a bit and acted as if he wanted to speak. "Yes, Three?" Kevin prompted.

"Sir, would the larger cause be working toward lunch?"

Kevin cocked an eyebrow. "Are you that eager for a repeat of your first experience eating here?"

Kendrick shuffled. "No, sir. I've actually found the food locker near the kitchen. There are some fantastic rations hidden behind all of the raw meat and pots of green goop." About half of the squad perked up upon hearing those words.

"I already looked back there!" Telia protested.

"Did you check out the freeze-dried fruit in the sealed compartment?" Danya asked.

Kevin cleared his throat and calmed the group. "We are about to take a lunch break, yes, and whether you choose to brave the mess hall or whether you make plans of your own is up to you. We're going to run through this drill three more times with some different setups and distances, and then you may go. This afternoon we will begin station training, which is much more specific than our testing grounds. After you make the rotation through combat and pilot training, shooting drills, and survival training, we will split by expertise and become adjusted to the system that we will all work in. Divisions will include engineers and mechanics, infiltration, combat, and smuggling, as well as a special section for our computer experts. I will need a thorough analysis of our home here and what we need to keep our missions secret. As we stand here right now, we've no security at all, let alone a decent system to keep us all connected like we should be."

Trika grasped her chest as if she had been shot. "You mean we're practically _naked_ right now?"

Danya glanced at Trika, then glanced away quickly, an expression of disdain flashing briefly across her face. She turned to her partner, trying to make her voice sound neutral, but not quite succeeding. "Sir, are we getting a _different_ computer expert in with the new team?"

"That has yet to be decided, Two, so I'd suggest becoming friends with Eleven as soon as possible."

Danya frowned, far from satisfied with that answer.

"All right, folks, let's dig in," Kevin brought his squad back to the present. "Ops, targets are moving to twenty meters. Let's move!"

*****

They had survived lunch, but they could have probably used more survival training before encountering Bullwinkle in the mess hall.

"And as you can see," Bullwinkle said, biting down and enjoying another bite of his rucksack, "they have a nice, minty flavor. Go 'head and take a bite. They're on me."

"Umm... thanks so much." Danya rolled her gray-green eyes, getting a good sniff of the "food."

"What a great privilege," Quis agreed, hesitantly grabbing her rucksack and daring to bring it closer to her mouth.

Bullwinkle felt proud as the enlisted personnel started, or at least pretended, to devour their pack. The operations team was on rotation for the mess hall, and he couldn't wait to have the entire squad knowledgeable about rucksack consumption and survival training.

Kendrick smirked as he avoided eating entirely. "Hey," he said rather cockily, "what happens when we eat our packs? What do we do with our C-rations?"

Bullwinkle shook his head, as if Kendrick should know what to do in such a dire situation. "As every good soldier should know, your cans of Spam and ljutefisk strips are designed to double as hand-to-hand combat weapons, in case you run out of ammo." Sergeant Bullwinkle waved to Stone, who was awaiting his signal to come into the teaching session. "I've pulled aside one of the intrusion team members to help me out. Our combat expert, Stone, shall illustrate."

With a shrug that clearly stated he didn't have any clue what he was doing or why he was doing it, Stone took handfuls of Spam and ljutefisk from his own C-ration cans and got into a combative stance to demonstrate battle maneuvers opposite of the scary Sergeant Bullwinkle.

*****

Throwing yet another datapad across his desk, Kevin sighed loudly enough to be heard outside his office. His home on the first floor of the Nest was completely cluttered, a mix of profiles, useless data, requests, and orders. The overwhelming feeling gripping his chest was normal for the amount of stress he was under, he supposed.

The training was going... well. The day's piloting training session had been a little hairy, though. Several would-be pilots had experienced a few scrapes with some skyhooks, and a New Republic patrol vehicle had chased the squad's shuttle, the _Hawk_, around Coruscant airspace. Someone had apparently made a bet with another member on how well he or she could operate the shuttle's turrets. The perpetrator had put the weapons on low power and zinged the patrol car by accident. Captain Ski planned on investigating the matter more closely. He had to give the crew a lecture about such things, encouraging that such pranks and bets only take place at the Nest and that they be harmless. He then had to apologize formally to the police, an event he never again wished to experience.

However, the Talons were working hard, and that was more than he could really ask for from the odd grouping of soldiers. With every day that passed, the Talons seemed to become more of a unit. For the moment, Ski would have to overlook some of the childish antics. Most of the immaturity was actually helping everyone to like each other. Ops II had collectively taken apart his protocol droid, H9-0, and dumped him into the garbage disposal. After disciplining the team with kitchen duty, he had spent three hours attempting to put the droid back together. The annoying machine usually took the brunt of the squad's anger, but as long as Ops II had benefited from the prank, he could forgive the deed and let it stay in the past.

The problem between Jaren and Telia had not been solved yet. He had checked up on his team earlier that night and found an array of dishes and tools strewn around the hallway near Telia's door. The two had been fighting and were still going at it when he interrupted. Neither would talk, so both ended up with 'fresher and kitchen duty. While they were switching off jobs, they could think about their issues and see about compromising and resolving them.

Some of his equipment had arrived also. He had acquired a new transport: an old, modified YT-2000 that had powerful weapons and enough cargo space for a whole contingent of troops. Kendrick had already christened it the _Eagle_, keeping with the tradition begun by the _Hawk_. Kithera had adopted the _Eagle_ as _her_ baby, volunteering to make some basic modifications to the engine and hyperdrive. He was rather impressed with his lieutenant's enthusiasm. Whether he decided to declare her the executive officer or give the title to Lieutenant Kai, he knew that either way the choice would be difficult.

Danya and Trika had given him a rough estimate of three weeks to get the Nest up to standard code for electronics and computer equipment. He had hoped for a shorter time, but he figured the aging building would need such work. Both computer experts still didn't seem to be getting along, but maybe they now shared some respect for each other considering they were the only ones qualified for their positions in any capacity. Quis was probably smart enough to know a bit about hacking, cracking, and slicing, but the experience those two had made them indispensable.

They had also given him a large order to give to Intel. The price tag of such equipment and tools would not please his superiors, and it was not something he was prepared to request. It seemed like every time he required some bit of machinery or data, all he received were incomplete, broken, useless items that were sent late, if ever. Most of his first day's requests had actually been ignored completely. None had appeared on the intelligence community's HoloNet system.

At the moment, though, the two computer experts were busy setting up some preliminary terminals and areas that were secure enough for his personnel to use. Danya and Trika had left his office bickering about some sort of wire usage and what kind of encryption to set up. He supposed they would get along well once they got through updating the building... or maybe they would end up killing each other in the process.

A slight knock at his door shook him from his mixed and troubled thoughts. The tall Jane Muir stood at attention, awaiting his response. "Come on in, Lieutenant," he called, gesturing for her to have a seat. "Drop the formalities. It's very late and I don't feel like being proper at this time of night."

"Yes, sir," Muir replied, taking her seat. She still held onto her formal titles and sat up straight despite the order.

"What can I do for you tonight?"

Muir gave him a puzzled look. "I'm your appointment for the hour, sir."

Kevin cocked an eyebrow and looked at his chrono. "_Kriff_," he spat, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Did I, uh, happen to _mention_ why I asked you here?"

Muir chuckled at her superior, obviously amused by his apparent lack of sleep and attention to schedules. "You mentioned little," she said, taking an absent look around the cluttered office. "Are you having a bad evening, sir?"

The captain leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes for a brief moment. "I've just got a lot of things on my mind and on my plate," he told her, feeling oddly comfortable with her company despite her lack of enthusiasm. Jane Muir was still the same stone-cold woman, even after a couple of days at the Nest and with the entire intrusions team underneath her.

"It isn't us, is it?" she asked, though there was no real concern in her voice.

Kevin opened his eyes and turned to regard her. "Some of my squad bring some amount of stress, but the stress is more from the outside. I've just received a request to return, within a week, an entire medical and psychological evaluation for each of my members."

"That doesn't seem too hard." Muir shrugged. "It does sound redundant, though. Aren't you sending the information back to the ones who originally sent it to you?"

"Yes." Kevin nodded, then smirked at the irony. "The surprise came because I was informed that the information they gave me is wrong. They want the correct information because they were too lazy to get it themselves."

Muir suddenly understood. "Does that mean that our posts will be changing?"

"I don't think so." Kevin shook his head, then attempted to organize a few of the datapads. "The squad would have let me know if they were not qualified for a specific position. I do worry, however, that their qualifications may have been exaggerated. I also have the records from all of our training these last couple of days. In many cases, the numbers don't add up."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"Well, I have a number of personnel who have amazing scores for the shooting range," Kevin began hesitantly, unsure if he should be telling her all of this. It did feel good to get the ordeal off his chest and into the open. "Jaren and Telia are among them, but Kendrick is almost as good as they are. For a pilot, he has a shot worthy of the best snipers, yet his record states little military history and even less about his personal life before the New Republic."

"The whole thing sounds interesting."

"It's _frustrating_," Kevin corrected lightly. "I was counting on having a little bit of an idea about whom I would have in my squad, but I'm almost back at the starting block." He threw a folder onto a huge pile behind him. "I've got supposed hotshots who couldn't even work their shields properly today, and others who didn't know how to read formations that I believed to be too basic for this squad. Telia is almost as good of a pilot as Kendrick or Ty, but her history is just as incomplete.

"Intel is also demanding a classification for Trika and Milan. If they're classified as a 'pure Human' according to Stone's physical assessment, they'll qualify for certain New Republic benefits, but if they aren't, they'll have to pass exams and physicals more frequently than the other members." Kevin rubbed his aching head with his free hand. "I've also got to get some sort of handle on chemical imbalances and mental capabilities. I can't have half of my squadron shaken awake because a few members have odd nightmares and visions hours before dawn."

"You've got your work cut out for you, I'm taking?"

Kevin nodded rather weakly. "Stone isn't done with all of the physicals, but he's finding that a good many of the squadron have a trait that I don't even want to think about."

"And that is?" Muir prodded, curious.

"Stone has a couple of members who already test high for Force-sensitivity." Kevin let it out with a sigh. "He thinks it may be causing Ty to read maneuvers more quickly in the sims... _and_ become distracted. Even though she hasn't shown it yet, Telia tests high as well, and like I said, he's not even done with everyone."

Muir mused over the facts for a moment before answering. "I think you've been set up, sir."

"I agree," Kevin said, Muir's summary fitting perfectly in his present scenario. "You'd think I'd welcome this particular problem, but so far, the Force is a major pain in my neck. I can't have such a distraction at this moment. I need consistent, solid leaders, not erratic cases of dysfunction."

"But if someone could train them?" Muir began to protest.

Kevin shook his head. "No one has been able to control them thus far," he reminded her. "That's a big reason I believe they were sent my way. They'd need a lot of time with a master in order to control what ails them, and Luke Skywalker isn't exactly in the business of inviting total psychos to his academy." He sighed yet again before giving Muir a direct and almost surprised look. "Why am I even telling you all this?"

"That's my job, sir," she said simply, a touch of pride in her voice.

"What do you mean?" Kevin asked blatantly, feeling the urge to search for her datapad for possible editing.

Jane Muir smiled slightly, then tucked the expression back underneath that stern visage. "The information on my past is probably incomplete, but it may mention my involvement with several mercenary groups of small fame."

Kevin indeed began to search, having trouble picking out her particular history amongst the others in his mind. Coming across the profile, he carefully read the highlighted portions. "It says you climbed the ladder of the 301s."

A nod came in response. "I specialized in E.I.F.T.E. for a number of years. Their top leaders found that -"

Captain Ski held up a hand to stop her sentence. "E.I.F.T.E., Lieutenant?"

"Extracting Information from the Enemy, sir."

"You mean -"

"I tortured people, sir, and for a very long time," Muir confessed, never missing a beat. She might have been nervous, however, for she did rub a hand over her long brown hair, the sudden motion like an odd twitch. "I didn't have to use any tactics on you, sir, but there are more subtle methods of making someone feel at ease, or directing a conversation towards divulging information."

"I suppose I can be glad that I am not your enemy," Kevin held back a full smile, more than a little anxious about Jane Muir's hidden talent. This new bit of information was unusual, to say the least, but probably the least of his worries. "Well, I think I can log that and call it a night," he said, standing to end the meeting. He was already considering grabbing some form of hard liquor to forget about the day. "Anything else, Lieutenant?" He sincerely hoped that was the end of her experience before the New Republic.

"No, sir." She stood to attention and awaited his dismissal. He gave it after a moment, admiring her discipline, and watched as she exited his office. Thus began his hunt for some form of drink to help him get to sleep and hopefully erase a good many memories from his mind. He made a move for the bottom drawer of his desk, when his eyes caught the small figure standing in the front entranceway.

His eyes darted up to see her, a diminutive child who looked to be no older than five standard years. He couldn't really tell for sure if she was a little girl, but he figured she was. A straw hat covered her whole head and prevented him from seeing her face. He dared not move lest he scare her off. This... _apparition_ was curious to him, though, and he couldn't take his eyes from it.

Ski dared to stand up and take a step to the side of his desk. The child just stood there, tattered clothing draped over her body loosely. Burn marks scorched its tan design, and only by moving to the side of his desk could he see that her bare feet were burnt. His face drew up in disgust, in horror of the specter. _Who could she be?_ he wondered, questioning his sanity in wanting to take another step towards her. He moved to do so, bringing his foot around the corner of his desk. He would almost be at the doorway -

His chrono rang, signaling the middle of the night. He jumped at the sound, visibly shaken by the alarm. Unconsciously, he looked back at the chrono, and even though he knew what he would see, he had to look back at the doorway.

The child was already gone, leaving him to ponder the horrors of his past returning to haunt him.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six: "This first op will be **_**mostly **_**to your liking."**_

The next few days were filled with the same training and drills, and it was very evident that most of the Talons were catching on. Ski's personnel were becoming quick and efficient soldiers, and he could tell many of them were much happier now that their own expertise was mixed in with the usual training. He had found out the estimated date when his new group of four would be arriving too, and he figured that Intel was simply making things more difficult by keeping the recruits out of his squadron for the time being. Kevin gave a list of exercises and drills to Intel so that his newest recruits would not be so far behind his squadron, but he figured the list would be lost in the sea of folders and datapads, or at the worst, "mistakenly thrown out."

Kevin decided to take a flight in one of the newly arrived A-wings. The squadron had dubbed them "Baby Birds," and the name seemed to fit. Several days earlier the squad had installed some racks on the _Eagle_ and the _Hawk _so they could both carry the A-wings. It was not only a good exercise in mechanics and engineering, but it had also required teamwork and cooperation, not to mention some following of instructions, something his squadron desperately needed to practice.

Captain Ski hopped in the A-wing nearest the shuttle and allowed himself the pleasure of relaxing in the cockpit.

*****

Giving himself a look over, Jaren flashed a handsome smile at the good-looking guy in the mirror. He had just gotten showered off from a grueling workout and was slicking back his jet-black hair to just the right angle. "You're a sly son of a bantha," he told himself, and even while he knew half of the boast wasn't true, he _had_ let his mischievous side out the day before. Jaren knew Captain Ski couldn't trace that little incident involving the patrol car back to him, though.

Kendrick had bet Jaren that, even though he was a sharpshooter, he couldn't hit the broadside of a bantha with the shuttle's guns. Still, he was doing just fine until Kendrick made a sharp turn to throw off his aim. His low-power shot missed the practice target and lit up the patrol car.

No one was very amused.

The only other thing that had gone wrong that week was his meeting with Telia. He had gone over to her room to talk about the unit and see if they could forget the past, start over. She seemed like she might finally be coming around, but one thing led to another and they started talking about old missions. The next thing he knew, he was making a strategic retreat into the hall and dodging incoming fire. Captain Ski saw the whole thing and gave them both extra duties around the base. He and Telia had returned to their routine of avoiding each other, but perhaps things had been smoothed over for the most part.

Aside from that, though, the week had gone well. He had proven himself one of the best shooters in the unit and a fair pilot. He was, however, in dead last place in hand-to-hand combat. His reflexes just weren't up to the task of trying to fight another person. It was almost funny, really. He could sneak kilometers into enemy territory, wait undetected and unmoving for days on end, place a single, perfect shot at a thousand meters, but he couldn't manage to avoid getting thrown around by almost everyone else in the unit. That particular fact was embarrassing considering he was thrown around by all of the females of the squad, including Telia. It was a very minor thing, though, and with enough practice he knew he would soon be helping _them_ off the floor instead of the other way around.

Jaren looked at his chrono and jumped unconsciously. He'd figured he had at least another fifteen minutes before he was to meet the other members of the squad. Everyone was on the sixth floor stairwell awaiting Captain Ski's usual quiet time. The squad had set up a nice surprise for him on the roof, where all of the squad's transports were kept.

He arrived in the stairwell just ahead of Captain Ski and took his place in hiding. Ski had continued up the stairs onto the roof and had hopped into his usual A-wing. The captain seemed surprised to see a small tag near the main controls.

_Sir,  
We know we have been more than a little troublesome and that we've given you some major headaches. Here is a gift just to show how we've come together recently. Thanks._

The string attached to the tag led to a stuffed hawk-bat, much like a child's plush toy. The hawk-bat was brutally squeezed into a jacket that did not fit, but it was what was on the jacket that made Ski smile. Three large tears led their way down to three claws on the backside... _talons_, as they were. He had heard of morale boosters, but he thought the stories were all fake. The few units he had previously commanded had never done such a thing, but his squad, the Talons, had gotten him.

Ski looked up to see the whole squadron looking at him from around the A-wing. They were all smiling. "Who did this?" he asked, an even bigger smile spreading across his face.

"We did, sir," was the unanimous answer.

"Thanks," Kevin said, his shoulders relaxing with relief. "I needed it."

*****

Early the next morning, just about into the fourth week of training, the Talons awoke to a new challenge, one that many had looked forward to since they had arrived at the Nest. Captain Ski announced that the squad would be going off-planet for some field training for the next few days. "This first op will be _mostly_ to your liking," he told his gathered squad as they began to board the _Hawk_. "We won't be going very far, only to Vandor-3, and we'll return before nightfall. There's no need for any equipment you may have, as everything you'll need for the speeder bike challenge will be provided for you."

Several Talons nodded excitedly, and even more couldn't contain the light in their faces. Perhaps they were all excited about simply getting off the base that they had occupied for several weeks, even it is was just to Coruscant's neighboring planet.

All of the Talons hurriedly strapped in and got ready to take off. Kendrick was actually getting his first experience flying the _Hawk_ with his squad today, and Ty was serving as his co-pilot. As the shuttle carefully glided from the Nest's roof and makeshift hangar, Kevin addressed his group again. "With the help of the _esteemed_ Sergeant Bullwinkle, I have set a course through some different terrain on Vandor-3's northern continent. You all know how to ride one of these bikes, so I won't bore you with the details. Remember that we will be racing for pride, not prizes, so stay sharp. Sergeant Bullwinkle and H9 will be at the end of the course awaiting your arrival." The shuttle made a sharp turn that shook everyone in their seats, but nothing out of the ordinary. Most Talons could tell simply from the feel of the ship's vibration that they were already well out of Coruscant airspace.

"We'll use speeders a lot during missions for transport and relay vehicles, so use this time to concentrate on practicing rusty skills," Ski continued, absently marking, for his own information, the flight time and flight maneuvers that his pilots were using. "The course will be marked for its entire length of five kilometers." Another turn alerted all that the final descent was underway. "Any questions?"

Lieutenant Jane Muir spoke up to the surprise of all. "The winner gets bragging rights, but what happens to the losers?"

Captain Ski smiled evilly, fondly recalling the first time he had threatened a certain group inside the squadron. "Last place finisher has to buy us all drinks while we're on liberty tonight, and he or she will also get the distinct honor of babysitting H9-0 for the night."

The entire squad shuddered, but the second operations team perked up, determined that Captain Ski's threat would not land upon them. Ops II shared a couple of knowing glances and chuckles, finding the threat poignant.

Kendrick brought the _Hawk_ down gently through an opening in the thick foliage, proving more than capable of handling the large transport. The trip had not taken long at all, and as the back cargo hold began to open, fresh air flowed into the cargo bay. Quite a change after they had been cooped up on Coruscant for almost a standard month. The Talons un-strapped themselves and made their way onto the new terrain.

Much to their excitement, fifteen speeder bikes were there to meet them. The machines were already assigned Two through Sixteen, so it was hardly difficult to determine which bike belonged to whom. Ski watched his Talons inspect their vehicles and saw a few evil smiles pop up. His mechanics, pilots, and engineers had apparently found out that he had taken any sort of governing mechanism off the bikes. Soon everyone had discovered the minor detail and became even more excited at the prospect of the race

"Even though the governors are disabled," Captain Ski added, cautiously thinking that his people might need the extra warning, "I still want you all to cross the finish line in _one piece_. I'll meet you all at the end." Ski held up his standard blaster and prepared to sound the start of the race.

*****

A feral grin found its way to Danya's face as she studied the speeder bikes. She might be a hacker by trade, but as a kid, she had become very proficient at speederbike racing. It was a talent she had enjoyed showcasing, especially on dangerous terrain. Nothing had made her parents more furious than her daredevil tricks on her dilapidated bike.

She listened with half an ear as Captain Ski continued to drone on about the race. _Loser has to buy drinks and baby-sit that annoying droid, eh_? Danya had no intention of coming in last place.

At the sound of the blaster, Danya took off, her smile growing with confidence as she easily held her own and even began to get ahead of the main pack. There were some good racers, she realized. Jane Muir especially looked as though she'd done this before.

Danya grinned wider still and increased her speed. She might or might not win, but there was little danger of losing.

*****

Quis Heartilly might not have had the skill, but she certainly had the know-how. She wasn't going to crash and burn. She couldn't. She knew what kind of a liability she was to the captain and to her teammates, and she wasn't going to let them down if she could help it. She nervously awaited the starting shot, fidgeting with the controls and gnawing on her bottom lip. The shot sounded, and she gunned the controls.

After two false starts she was left on the starting line as the others sped into the distance.

"I'm not cut out for this field stuff," she muttered under her breath, tears welling up in her eyes. _This stuff is for grunts, not minds_.

Well, she would _make_ things easier for herself. Jamming the throttle on, the speeder almost shot away from her. Quis had barely managed to keep her emotions under control after such a start. Slapping a small device onto the control panel, Quis gave her Assisted Vehicle Control Device a look over. The AVCD took over the bike instantly, scanning the surrounding terrain and plotting an appropriate course to avoid any major obstacles. Even at high speeds, the device would not allow the speeder to crash, and Quis could practically drive as erratically as she liked.

She'd certainly need it. _Thanks, Dad_.

*****

_I'm going to lose_, Kithera thought dramatically. She didn't mind _fixing_ the bikes, but _riding_ them was a different matter altogether. As the blaster sounded and the Talons flew forward, Kithera gave another sigh, touching the handles to gun the engines. Being an officer in the squadron meant that she had better perform, and perform well.

Nothing happened.

_Let me rephrase that last thought: I am _definitely _going to lose. I'd better have my money ready_.

She touched the handles yet again, flinging herself forward and off the speeder bike. The vehicle sputtered to a stop before dying. Kithera dared to kick the bike. "Worthless piece of junk!" she yelled, trying to avoid the odd look Captain Ski was giving her.

*****

Telia Aris zipped along, determined to finish at the front of the pack. Moving this fast helped to relieve some of the tension she had felt since seeing Jaren again. The irony was ridiculous, but she had figured out that the best way to stay calm and in control was to beat Jaren at _every_ training session, including this one.

She put more pressure on the throttle and flew past Rubi and Mekial.

Speeding about on bikes reminded her of flying, and of the dream her father had for her. Bragging about his only child was his way of hiding the pain of his traitor-wife, she supposed. His push for her to become an elite pilot turned something she loved into a cursed passion.

It felt good to leave home, even though she left to live a lie. It felt good to know the freedom of space and of other planets, but she hadn't had the heart to tell her father the truth of her involvement with the intelligence division instead of his beloved dream of Starfighter Command.

That decision led her to Jaren.

That decision left her with a broken, angry heart.

Telia looked up to see Jaren slightly ahead of her. She couldn't let him win. Setting her face in determination, she pushed her bike as fast as she could.

*****

Kendrick shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had not had as good of a start to the race as he had desired.

_I'm lead pilot in this squad... there's no way I'm finishing last_!

He wound his way through the pack, taking a position just behind the front-runners. At the moment, Danya led the group, followed by Milan, Jaren, Jane, and Ty. It seemed like no one wanted to buy drinks or baby-sit H9 at the end of the race.

Ken cast a glance over his shoulder. Telia Aris was catching up. He stomped on his throttle pedals, trying to goose up the bike's speed. Whatever place he finished in, he had no desire, or intention, of coming up last.

*****

Stone's thoughts were a few light years away during the entire race rundown. He shifted uncomfortably on his speeder, the memory of the Talon swim qualifier fresh in his mind. _Who would have thought ljutefisk could've stung like that? And why is it that every time Sergeant Bullwinkle gets near food, someone ends up badly hurt_?

"I'll meet you all at the finish line."

_Snap to it, Ten! Here we go_.

The blaster fired.

*****

Stone opened his eyes slowly, an eternity later, to a painful ringing in his head. _Roll call: legs? Check. Arms? Check. Frenzied bantha herd in my head? Still going strong_.

Captain Ski walked into the second floor medbay just as Stone considered the possibility of bolting out the door. "That barrel roll you tried at the end of the course was inventive, Stone."

"Thank you, sir." The Talons' corpsman tried to sit up, managing to do so after two tries.

"Of course, it would have been even _more_ impressive if you had done it with more than a half-meter's clearance on either side of your bike."

Stone grimaced, finally remembering the stunt that had ended his race. "So, what's my bar tab like now, sir?"

"Actually," Ski stopped him short, "we're still debating whether you or Kithera are buying. Her engine flamed out before she got out of the gate. But in any case, you two were _quite_ generous last night."

"Do you happen to have a blaster with you, sir?"

"Oh, and I almost forgot. Come on in, H9."

"I'm sure there's a treaty convention somewhere that expressly forbids this, sir."

Ski managed a wicked smile, something that Stone had to admit the captain did rather well. "Have a good evening, Stone." H9-0 came in just as Ski closed the door to the medbay.

"Good evening, sir. I am H9-0, and I am familiar with various squadron protocols and -"

"Oh, switch off!"

*****

Captain Ski was pleased with the results... _sort of_. He had created a little bit of incentive with the threat of H9-0 and the drinks. The punishment would probably fall on both Kithera _and_ Stone. Kevin actually felt kind of sorry for them, but only for a brief moment. As if watching H9 wasn't enough, he and the rest of the group had run up a fairly large bill. Given that fifteen squadron members had participated, Ski understood that a healthy portion of Kithera and Stone's next two pay deposits would automatically go toward the tab.

Danya Faithwood had won the race with flying colors. He wished people had taken the race as seriously as she did.

_Oh, well_, he thought, _tomorrow is a new day_. He actually had given away a bit of the next surprise to his squad, and from the eager dashing about, he could tell many were already trying to edge out their teammates by preparing early. The Talons were going to return to the off-planet training ground for a war-game exercise between two teams, determined by Sergeant Bullwinkle.

_Speaking of Bullwinkle..._ Kevin turned the corner to see acrid smoke coming from the mess hall. Before he could pass the double doors and avoid being seen, he heard several groans and a couple of trays drop.

It seemed that the sergeant had created another masterpiece.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven: "They must be excited about somethin'!"**_

Jaren Kai had already spent a couple of hours preparing for the captain's war games. Captain Ski had given locations to drop off their weapons and equipment and had let the groups go for the rest of the day. Jaren chuckled to himself as he sat in his room, adjusting a couple of scopes to his weapons. With the unique hangovers half of the squad had from the night before, everyone probably _needed_ the rest of the day off.

After readying his equipment and ensuring that every advantageous item had found its way into his stash, Jaren began a rudimentary survey of his teammates. He didn't know yet who was going to be on his team, but he figured he might pick up some ideas from his fellow Talons. It seemed, though, that everyone was keeping his own ideas to himself. Whenever he entered another Talon's room, that particular member quit whatever he was working on and acted as if he had simply been resting. Jaren knew better, though.

Jaren returned to his room disgruntled with the results of his survey. Not knowing who was on his team was eating away at the normally patient man. His mind still busy, Jaren began to weigh team strengths and weaknesses. Telia was obviously near the top of the shooters list and would probably not be on his team. Kendrick was a good shot, too, though. When he had entered Quis's room, she had been fidgeting with a small device attached to her belt. He figured she had something up her sleeve. Mekial seemed very sneaky and devious in her own right as well. Jaren wouldn't put it past her to have something planned to turn things around at the last minute.

Instead of trying to figure out every detail, he decided to head to the lounge, where Sergeant Bullwinkle would be posting the teams shortly.

It seemed that the Talons were getting good at being Talons.

*****

Rubi slumped into an open chair in the lounge, anxious for the list of teams to be posted. Mekial was already waiting in the chair across from her, and the two shared a knowing smile.

Neither had been able to see the list that Sergeant Bullwinkle had put together so far. He swore he had some sort of program running on his datapad that would spit out the list once its calculations were complete. Yet the sergeant kept the datapad on him, and no infiltration techniques had aided either of them. Even the air ducts hadn't helped. The two had come across evidence that the other had been in the same area only moments apart. The two were becoming of a like mind in their partnership and found that most of their war-game preparations were identical in nature.

The two continued to sit and await the list's posting, hoping that they would land on the same team.

*****

Captain Ski watched as his unit began to shuffle in from their various activities. His scarlet droid stumbled in after Stone, and he noticed that H9 was missing an arm. H9 was looking nervously around the room, maybe not wanting to stir up any other trouble. Kevin decided to punish the culprit with hangar duty for a couple of days, but all in all, he truly understood the whole ordeal and didn't care much that the arm was still missing.

Jaren Kai entered the lounge. Ski had found out a little earlier that it was his own support team leader who had been ultimately responsible for the patrol car incident, but he had decided to sweep the whole thing underneath the rug until after the war games. Of course, that would mean a decent talk with him, but it would be interesting to see what the man had to say about the ordeal. Some of his squad's tricks and pranks were beginning to rival the infamous Wraith Squadron.

_Speaking of pranks_... Kevin wandered onto another topic. The stuffed hawk-bat toy he had received as a gift had "commandeered" the _Hawk_ and taken it under siege. He still heard chuckles and whispering about where the elusive creature would appear next. Ski had narrowed the culprits of that particular prank down to Trika, Kaiba, Kithera, or Milan, but he doubted that Milan would engage in such an activity without being totally out of his mind.

To the delight of everyone in the room, which was now flooded with Talons, Sergeant Bullwinkle arrived. Instead of declaring the teams, however, he seemed horrified at the sight of his recruits lounging around, waiting for orders.

"Well, wadda we have 'ere?" The recruits caught their breaths and at first, in denial, thought that he would swiftly post the lists and leave. To their horror, Bullwinkle stepped into the doorway and blocked off the main exit. "If y'all got nothin' to do, then we exercise! I want y'all to drop an' gimme fifty! Now!"

A couple of Talons tried to contest the order, but it seemed that Bullwinkle's calculations were still working on his datapad, so, grudgingly, all fifteen squadron members hit the floor and proceeded to give Sergeant Bullwinkle his "fifty."

Before the Talons were even done, however, his datapad buzzed with the obvious sound that his program was done. "I got 'er calculated all out how yer strengths and weaknesses will add to yer team's power, and this here program had ya both dead even!" Bullwinkle told the squad. The sergeant waited until the last Talon was done with all fifty before printing out the list and posting it on the back wall of the lounge.

Kaiba made it to the back first strictly due to positioning and a tiny bit of creeping toward the wall during "exercise time." Sorting out the teams from the protocol for the games, she read aloud the listings of the groups.

Red Group  
Ski  
Faithwood  
Aris  
Jais  
Muir  
Talson  
Rinani  
Cloudrifter

Blue Group  
Quinn  
Heartilly  
Kai  
Yrisar  
Adair  
Lirac  
Altura  
Flynn

A mixture of reactions followed, but it seemed that everyone was satisfied with his or her group.

Sergeant Bullwinkle made a couple of quick announcements. "Red Group'll be taking the _Eagle_; Blue Group'll be taking the _Hawk_. Yer transports leave five standard hours before dawn, so I'd suggest some rest in addition to yer preparation. Bring any standard equipment yer position is qualified fer, and be prepared to show yer stuff. You'll arrive at two different bases nicely set up for us by them boys down at Intel, and yer mission will be to infiltrate and capture the opposing team's base with efficiency. Do this right and ya'll make me a very proud man."

The Talons looked at their sergeant, wondering if he really was a man to begin with, and contemplating whether they wanted to make him proud in the first place.

"Is that all?" Rubi asked with a mixture of curiosity and excitement.

"That's all we have been given," Kevin answered from behind the group, who turned around to listen to their leader. With a nod, he let them all go. In a mad rush for the doors, the Talons bolted from the lounge to prepare for the contest.

"Well, I'll be," Bullwinkle said with a hint of wonder. "They must be excited 'bout somethin'!"

Kevin closed his eyes and tried to picture Sergeant Bullwinkle floating away into space. "We will see how _excited_ they really are when it comes down to performing under pressure," he returned, not wanting to open his eyes and see his assistant again. "Have you packed the ration bags for both teams?"

"Everything's packed, Cap'n!" the other responded, yet from his retreating voice, he sounded like he was leaving. Kevin opened his eyes just as the fumes from the dirty man exited the room. Who could tell what kind of rations the drill sergeant and cook had come up with, let alone what mischief he would create between now and the war games?

*****

The unit had quickly split into the proper groups, each eyeing the other suspiciously. Jaren, the given leader, grabbed the helm of Blue Group and took a quick inventory. Each team seemed to be split according to strengths and positions, and he was quite sure that they would be evenly matched.

Strategy would be the ultimate key to victory.

"How did Red Group manage to get Captain Ski?" Quis groaned, for no particular reason other than to complain about having to participate in the war games.

"And they managed to get the better sniper!" Trika exclaimed, then turned sharply to Jaren. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?" A wide grin split her odd-looking face.

Their makeshift leader smiled wryly. "Very funny," Jaren remarked. "How come we got the lowly code-pounder and not the real hacker?"

Trika looked offended for just a moment. "Believe me when I say that you'll be praising me by the time we win these war games. You'll want the lowly _code-pounder_ in this scenario." The strange-looking woman interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms outward, then wiggled the dexterous digits as if typing. "And I must add I do my job quite well."

"All right, all right," Kendrick interrupted the banter. "What's the plan for the meantime? We've got four hours until we're to meet at the _Hawk_."

Jaren addressed the group. "Get any gear you might need for an extended stay outdoors. Meet at the _Hawk_ in three hours to discuss strategy." He shifted closer to his team, who took the hint and moved closer as well. "One last thing." He lowered his voice. "Mekial, see if you can plant some sort of listening or tracking devices on the other team's gear. Get to the supply rooms before they do and give them a few surprises."

Mekial nodded and gave the group one of her trademark evil grins.

"The rest of you should check your own things for the same tricks," Jaren instructed cautiously. "Dismissed."

He watched his group scramble to their respective rooms to prepare and did the same, using caution to make sure he was not being watched. He gathered his standard field equipment, which consisted of his camo outfit and tactical vest, a small kit of camo face paint, camo netting, glow rods, rope, a multi-tool, rifle scopes of different magnifications, and a survival knife. He loaded all of his gear into the pockets of his tactical vest and his backpack, picked up his weapon, and headed for the ship. He had some other materials to pick up from the hangar, and he wanted to get far away from the other team and the possibility of being watched. When he next saw Mekial, the team's espionage expert, he would get her to help him locate any bugs the other team might have placed in his gear.

He was ready for anything.

*****

Rubi scowled as she listened to Captain Ski detail how to prepare properly. The teams were split evenly, but she was a little upset that Quis had been placed in the other group. The engineer had something clever up her sleeve and Rubi knew it. _And_ she had been split from Mekial! The more she thought about the setup, the more she wanted to scream.

She wondered for a moment if the other team would play fairly.

Probably not. So she wouldn't, either. Rubi took five small devices out of her pocket and began to fidget. No, she was not going to play fairly at all.

*****

At Jaren's order, Mekial moved into "enemy territory" and retrieved several of their ration bags from Sergeant Bullwinkle's supply room. She planted several listening devices within the lining that were virtually untraceable with any technology Red Group would have. Now she just had to hope that they didn't end up eating their packs like Sergeant Bullwinkle had taught them. She wasn't quite sure what would happen then.

Utilizing every ounce of her spy training, Mekial sneakily slipped past Red Group's discussion in the hallway and made her way back to Jaren. The sniper was on the hangar roof preparing his rifle, as everything was being modified to compensate for the practice arena. The last thing the Talons needed was someone getting sniped by accident, and all weapons would be inspected for proper stain-mounting before take-off.

"How did it go?" he asked quietly, not bothering to look up or draw unwanted attention to their conversation.

"Perfectly." Mekial was messing with a transmitter and receiver in her ear. A broad grin began to make its way across her face. "You won't believe some of the stuff coming through this thing."

*****

Telia Aris prepared for "war." She had been trained well by Jaren Kai, and she knew exactly what kind of tactics he would be using with his group. She would be sure to use that to her team's advantage.

She had almost finished packing, knowing that Jaren had probably prepared the exact same items. This, however, was her time to prove that she could make it on her own.

A knock on the door caused her to look up. She stood quickly and saluted, and the salute was returned from Captain Kevin Ski.

"What can I help you with, sir?"

"I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable with being Red Group's sniper," he said, not making a move to enter the room. He was apparently making this a quick visit. "I know that things might be a little hectic right now, but I feel confident that you can handle the situation."  
"Thank you, sir," Telia answered. "I won't let you down."

"Good," he said, turning to leave. "I didn't think you would."

Telia couldn't analyze the conversation very well with so many distractions in her head. As Ski left her room, though, she understood that it was finally time to show her commanding officer _and_ Jaren exactly what she was capable of.

*****

After the posting of the long-awaited list and Lieutenant Kai's briefing, Kendrick returned to his quarters. Without preamble, he pulled a shoulder bag out of his closet and started sorting through the things he would need, throwing the majority of them into his pack.

The necessities were obvious: camo clothing, a small med-kit, and electro-binoculars. Ken came to a small pouch at the very back of the closet. He smiled before throwing _that_ in with the other equipment. The contents of the pouch would serve as a small present in case his temporary "enemies" got too close. Kendrick had risked five paychecks in a Sabacc game with the boys from the 212 to acquire _that_ little bag of surprises.

He looked about the room, wondering if he'd forgotten anything. Letting his gaze wander upward, Ken spotted a little bump protruding from the north wall.

"Nice try," he smiled, removing his blaster pistol from its home near his hip. Turning it around, he gently ground the butt of the gun onto the bump. There was a satisfying _crunch_ as the listening device was crushed under the pressure.

"Had a chance to plant bugs already?" he asked his empty room aloud. "This _will_ be an interesting little exercise."

Not willing to take any more chances, he deactivated the lights. It was only after the soothing blackness surrounded him that he added the last few items to his pack and pockets. He zipped up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, then paused to slide his vibro-knife into its customary spot in his boot before he continued into the hall, sealing the door behind him.

Ken was supposed to meet the rest of his group at the ship in one standard hour, but he thought he would do a little reconnaissance work first. Maybe he would sneak out some decent rations behind Bullwinkle's back.

He would probably need the practice.

*****

Jane Muir slung her pack over her shoulder and gave her room one last look. She had practically cleared the place out for the war games, and although she could well hide her emotions, she could barely contain the slight smile at her own bag of tricks. She had something extra in mind for her enemies. No one would see it coming.

She turned out the light and locked her door, slipping down the hallway and heading toward the lifts. Her destination was the sixth floor and then the roof's hangar, then the _Eagle_, and then war. As she stepped onto the lifts and punched in the correct security sequence, she couldn't help but smile at the last part.

War was truly one thing that Jane would _thoroughly_ enjoy.

*****

Danya looked at herself in her room's mirror and grinned. She couldn't be more wired unless a bomb was strapped to her torso. She banished that thought quickly. She was already nervous enough and didn't need any distractions from what needed to be done. Taking the last bit of electronic equipment from her desk, Danya arranged her packs to their most comfortable position and gave herself one more look-over. Every bit of programming, networking, hacking, slicing, and data transfer protocol she had ever learned would be needed for this exercise, and she was more than confident in her abilities and her hardware.

With a muttered curse at the Chinaési woman's name, Danya wondered what Trika would have under her belt. Probably much of the same. How would they compare in the end?

"Just do your job," a voice from behind interrupted her thoughts. Jumping around and reaching for a weapon that was not there, Danya halted and saw that Captain Ski stood at her door.

A little embarrassed at her actions and perhaps at her transparency, she smiled kindly and then remembered to salute. Captain Ski swatted the salute away. "I didn't come here to receive respect," he told her, then shifted his weight toward the frame of her door. "Are you all right with this setup?"

_How ironic that he called it a setup_, she thought. She would have actually liked that psycho Milan on her team, but all in all, she supposed everything was fine. "Yes, sir," she turned back around and fiddled with a strap over her shoulder. "I'm ready to prove myself, sir."

"I'm confident you'll pull off whatever is necessary," Ski commented, noticing her nervousness fluctuate with each different word or tone he spoke. "You've practiced for something like this for a very long time."

Maybe getting along with him wouldn't be as impossible as she had first thought. But she merely nodded. She understood everything he had said, but keeping her own emotions in tow would not let him in on any weaknesses she might have. "I'm ready, sir," she said, and straightening to full height, all of 1.6 meters, she proved it.

*****

"Hey, stop looking so glum," Ty said, giving his partner a genuine smile. "This should be really fun."

Rinin stood at Ty's door, waiting patiently for his partner to pack so that they could meet their team at the _Hawk_. "I'm not glum," the Twi'lek corrected lightly. "My sanity levels can only take so much, though."

Ty stood up from packing near his bunk. He took a good look at his three bags and then at Rinin, who still stood patiently at the door. "What are you talking about?"

Talon Fifteen leaned on the frame and smacked his head hard against the durasteel. "We're not going for a month-long vacation," he frowned, gesturing with his eyes at the massive cargo Ty would be carrying.

"I've got some important stuff in there," the man protested and, to prove it, opened up the first bag to show the Twi'lek a load of camo paint and clothing.

Rinin dropped his bags and made his way toward Ty's bunk. Before Ty could stop him, he unzipped the last bag to reveal its contents. As the mangled mass of clothes, equipment, and - _bottles?_ - began to pour from the bag, Rinin could not hide his surprised expression.

"You packed your _own_ brew?" he said a little more loudly than Ty would have liked.

"Keep it down," Ty hissed, suddenly wishing his door was closed. "You want Bullwinkle to catch me with _this_?"

Rinin shook his head.

Ty smiled, beginning to pick up the bottles and jugs from the floor. "I knew you would agree with me once you caught the big idea."

*****

Milan ignored another demanding knock on his door, along with the voice that followed. "I'll be there in a second," he growled back, not entirely sure he wanted to see his teammate when he opened his door. Flinging the last bit of prepping material into his bag, Milan carefully tucked away the last of his weapons on his belt and person and grabbed his stuff to leave.

Just then, the door opened with a _whoosh_, slightly shocking him. He frowned at the odd-looking female standing in the corridor. "Now, what if I had been changing?" he calmly asked her.

Trika leaned against his doorframe and unplugged the two port devices she had used to slice his door. "Oh, that wouldn't have been good," she began with a devilish smirk. "I would have seen all of that blubber and flab underneath your uniform and would have had to take a recording for _all_ the squad to see."

Much to her relief, the big Kiffar actually broke forth with a grin. To be honest, the man probably had no fat on his body at all. Milan was about as muscular as the best-trained athletes in the galaxy. And to add to his imposing figure, he now wore a weapons rack on his belt. _Like he wasn't scary enough_. Trika shook her head in mock-disapproval. "Is all of that _really_ necessary?"

Milan looked down at his array of knives and ammunition, then looked back at the smirking Trika. Playfully grabbing her by the throat and moving her out of his room, he turned very serious. "You never know when I might have to keep you in check or shut you up." He dropped her against the opposite wall so that he could close his own door and lock it... whatever good it would do against the likes of Trika or anyone else with slicing abilities.

Somehow, he knew that everything he did would come back to get him eventually.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter Eight: "Don't shoot anyone too close or else you might knock out an eye."**_

Every Talon was accounted for at the hangar at the time set by Sergeant Bullwinkle. Both teams had already entered their team's transports and hidden most of their equipment and supplies away from view. Even the master spies, Mekial and Rubi, were not able to glean anything from their enemies. From here out, whenever Blue Group saw Red Group or vice versa, there would be shots - in an assortment of colored stains - fired.

"All right, grunts, listen up," said Bullwinkle from the hangar floor. He stood away from both transports so that everyone could hear him. It was understood that he would be taking an Intel shuttle to the planet to monitor both ships and teams. "I gave each of ya enough C-rations to last a week. Make sure you keep yerself dry when ya can, yer socks fresh, 'n' the same with all yer other underwear. Y'all should keep warm above all else. Don't forget to cook any ljutefisk, too, if you decide to catch 'em."

Red Group looked incredulously at the sergeant, who continued giving random tips for the war games. They knew that Blue Group was doing the same.

"Yer weapons are hot fer staining, so don't shoot anyone too close or else you might knock out an eye." Bullwinkle looked at his chrono. "I'll see y'all at the end of the games, and good luck."

Both transports were given the signal to ship out. Kendrick began to close the cargo hold and waited for Red Group's departure. Kevin was already lifting into the air, getting a proper head start so that Blue Group could not locate their base.

When the opposing team's ship had departed, Kendrick was finally given the signal to head out. But before he could give his controls one last check, he saw Sergeant Bullwinkle through his front viewport. The Talon cook was holding up a package of freeze-dried Corellian rhyshcate, and suddenly Ken groaned rather loudly.

"Ken, you all right?" Jaren called from the back. The sniper had been applying camo paint to his face and teaching the others how to use their face's natural shadows to conceal their presence in foliage. He made his way forward to the co-pilot's seat and shared Kendrick's horrible view.

"Yeah," Ken mumbled. "He found the rhyshcate I stole from the food locker, though."

As they took off and soared away from the Nest, only then did Kendrick catch himself. He had just told a superior officer about stealing official military resources. He was certain to get a bad mark on his record for that one.

"Bummer," he was surprised to hear Jaren say instead. The lieutenant patted Ken's shoulder before strapping himself in. "While you keep practicing up on your thievery, I suppose I'll have to share the wealth that I brought along with us."

Ken had the flexibility at that moment to glance toward Jaren. The lieutenant was _definitely_ serious. The pilot gave a sigh of relief. "I thought I was going to have to eat the straps on my pack, considering the rations we were given."

Jaren chuckled. "Things might get rough down there, but I don't think we'll need to take to _those_ sorts of measures," he said, as if keeping in a big secret.

The transport was now past atmosphere and the chaos of Coruscant's airspace, headed into free space. The sweeping black void loomed ahead and filled the viewport. Even though both soldiers had seen the sight hundreds of different times, it was still incredible. Kendrick gave another quick glance at Jaren while setting their course. The man had a simple smile on his face, and Ken brought his attention back to piloting the transport. The distant green planet would be within range very soon, and there was no sight of Red Group's transport. They had already effectively disappeared.

Ken ventured to ask Jaren what he was hiding, but Jaren spoke first. "I think that we're all getting very good at our jobs," he mentioned. "Mekial has a little something from her own stash and Ty keeps sipping something that's making him laugh really hard."

The two shared a brief laugh. They _were_ all getting really good at their jobs.

The green planet ahead drew closer with each passing second. "Has Mekial found any surprises in our things?" Kendrick asked. He was actually curious to see if he had inadvertently picked up any bugs while moving from his room to the hangar.

"She found and disabled several devices in our bags and electronic equipment," Jaren informed him. "I'm pretty sure that we're clean now."

The lieutenant and pilot watched the planet fill the viewport fully. Kendrick began to pay more attention to the navigation system, following the landing instructions to the letter. "I recommend we land a short distance from our base and check the ship for bugs. We can then move the shuttle from there to the base," Jaren said as the planetary clouds began to fly past the _Hawk_. "I can go ahead and perform some terrain recon. I'll scout around and get some ideas about how to design our defense."

Kendrick nodded his own approval of the idea and began his landing cycle. The _Hawk_ was running under minimal power to lessen the chances of the enemy detecting her. He was bringing the main landing gear down when he heard the intense shouts coming from the cargo bay.

*****

The insertion had gone perfectly. The _Eagle_ had landed and Red Group had unloaded everything from the transport's cargo bay. Kevin Ski had assisted with the transition to the temporary base and the camouflaging of the _Eagle_. His team members were currently preparing to take up their positions and were going over last minute details in their heads. Telia was suited up for a lengthy stay on a hill approximately one kilometer away. She was to keep up with Stone, who would relay information to the other team members. Everyone was equipped to handle the recon work set out for him or her. Jane, Stone, Rubi, and Danya in particular were ready to infiltrate enemy territory and take the victory for Red Group.

"We've been over this several times, people," Kevin reminded his team. "Keep cool." If his group could keep their heads, he was positive that they would be able to conquer Blue Group. "Telia will give the word to go ahead with the main plans. Keep up the constant scans and maintain comm silence. The infiltration team will go ahead with their attack on Blue Group once a location and recon work has been established. You folks know what to do."

Stone checked his communications equipment one more time before giving Telia the signal to get into position. As the sniper disappeared from the base, Kaiba called to Kevin from the upper floor.

"Did you find a good spot?" he called back to her. Kevin had ordered Kaiba to search the upper floors for storage locations and sniping holes before the sun went down. While the Talons would normally be waking up on Coruscant right now, they were just getting into their first night on this small planet. This drill would definitely be a test for all of his people, mentally and physically.

"I found two good sniping holes and some walled-off rooms for all of our ammo," she called back. She jumped down from the second floor and landed in the midst of Red Group. "It seems to be a standard base in square meters, but it lacks anything more. We weren't given any special treatment, if that gives you any idea of what we've got."

Kevin had assumed as much. Intel had set them up in the area, but the equipment and extras were completely up to them. "That's where our super intelligence will come in handy," he told them while tapping his temple, and his group smirked in return.

Jane Muir broke the silence in an uncharacteristic fashion. "We sure don't have any good looks to help us out," she said with a snide look toward Stone, who returned the glare equally. The two ended up smiling, which took the rest of Red Group by surprise. Was the infiltration team finally getting along?

"I'm going to make myself useful and unpack some of the equipment," Kithera announced.

"Good idea," Kevin agreed. "Let's get busy and wait for Telia's signal."

*****

"What in the name of Vader are you all doing back here?" Jaren had let Ken continue the landing procedures so that he could see what all of the commotion was about. Blue Group was crowded around a central point in the cargo hold, and from what he could see, Quis was the main attraction.

"Are you seeing _this_?"

"How did you _do_ that?"

Jaren eventually pushed aside Mekial and Ty to reveal a crouched Quis, who was protecting some sort of device in her hand. Only then did he notice what the commotion was about.

"Your hand!" he shouted a little too loudly and backed up a step. The engineer was holding a completely functional cloaking device.

"I was hoping it wouldn't blow up again," she admitted, watching the device make her hand partially transparent. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it certainly would make the war games a little more interesting. "My father and I worked on the design, but we could never get a functional prototype. I messed with this a little bit during these last few weeks and realized the problem was back in our early theoretical work. I've managed to get it working... to a degree."

Jaren and the rest of the group just stood and marveled at the creation. So _that_ was the trick she had been protecting. "That's rather impressive," he stuttered, unsure of what to say to their resident genius.

"_Rather impressive_?" Trika questioned with a hint of incredulity. "Watching me braid my hair is 'rather impressive.' This thing has the potential to make history!"

Quis flicked a switch and watched her hand return to normal. The device sat still in her palm. "It may have that kind of potential, but for right now, it's still in its prototype form."

Rinin cocked an eyebrow. "Can it cover a larger area, like say, a body?"

"I'd have a lot of work to do," Quis confessed, thinking about the details for a moment. "It's not as easy as flipping a switch or changing a wire. I'm going to have to reconfigure the opacity algorithm to run in 'one-half of the variable, squared' time so that the magnifying reflective output is multiplied by -"

"See what you can do, in any case," Jaren said, not entirely familiar with the complexity of her algorithms and not exactly sure if he cared. "We're about ready to move into position near the base and scout out the area. Make sure you all are ready to move out."

The gathered group began to disperse, and many were still chattering about the cloaking device while they collected their things. Jaren grabbed his and Ken's things, noticing that certain care had been taken to maintain the secrecy of one of Kendrick's weapons. An A-280 Sharpshooter, perhaps? He had not been aware that Ken owned one of those. It was a fine weapon with plenty of power, but without the range of his own RL-54 Ranger. He would have to compare notes with Ken at a later time.

He gave the team a few last reminders as the shuttle touched down safely. It was show time, and he and the rest of the team were ready to go.

*****

Telia set up her gear on the proper hill, ready for just the right time to strike. She was camouflaged about as well as she had ever managed, as she was sure Blue Group would be keeping an eye out for her. She had already pieced her rifle together, fitted the staining mount, and covered the black beauty under sufficient camo netting.

_I will not let Jaren ruin my opportunity to make a few easy kills_, she thought to herself, lying prone on the cold ground. As she lined up her shot with the flat plain below, she briefly thought about a similar training scenario, when she and Jaren had been assigned with the 527th. They had performed perfectly together. They had been at the top of the kill charts in training and on missions. On their first day, they had practically ripped the first place position from the previous reigning champions.

Things just weren't that simple anymore.

The night was setting in. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dimming light. Vandor-3 had no moons, but she knew from her previous research that the light from Coruscant bathed the nighttime in a strange, yellowish glow. If the cloud cover cleared a bit it would make for perfect sniping conditions.

The terrain was wonderfully formed so that it was nearly impossible to get to Red Group's base without passing through the plains for at least a quarter of a kilometer. Thinking about putting a splotch of red over Jaren's chest, Telia settled in and awaited Blue Group's first move.

*****

A soft breeze rustled the tops of the trees and gave him the cover that he so desperately needed. Although Jaren Kai was sure no one was in the vicinity of Blue Group's base, he also realized that he needed the practice. Remaining untraceable to all forms of tracking, Jaren began to move again, letting the noise of the night cover his movement. As he scanned all surroundings for possible traps and defensible positions, he knew his sniping experience would serve him well.

Over the past hour, he had moved the short distance to his team's base and had begun a systematic reconnaissance of the entire area. He made himself familiar with every fallen tree, stream, and boulder in the dense woods covering the war zone. He had noticed upon touching down on planet that there was one open plain as far as he could see, and he was sure that it would be a particularly strategic place for Telia to set up her rifle. He would have to warn the team to be cautious if they had to cross that area. He, however, had also found a perfect sniping position on a small hill, with a fallen tree nearby that would cover all likely avenues of attack.

He began by setting up his camo netting in the branches of the downed tree. The netting was constructed of a material that would dissipate his heat signature and scatter any sensor beams, which he was sure Red Group's infiltration team would be also employing to assist them. Once the net was in place, Jaren examined his handiwork from several angles to make sure it wasn't visible, then settled in to wait for the rest of his team to make the trek to the base.

*****

Quis had shuffled her way up to Ty and had attempted to discuss the specifics about her cloaking device. Ty had made little effort to assist, given that he was actually trying to keep his mouth shut. Blue Group was making its way toward the base, with Trika, Milan, and Mekial leading the group. Trika was set to attempt a cracking on the base in order to better assess how to stop it from happening again while the other two infiltrators would determine if the structure was ready for all other intrusion techniques. The rest of the team kept silent while observing the terrain for good hiding spots.

"Boy, am I sure glad we've got all of you guys on the team," Quis changed subjects while fixing a minor issue with the device. "I was getting worried for a bit there. I mean, it's not like I'm the greatest asset to the team, is it now? What good am I in a combat situation, anyway? I'm slow and pretty uncoordinated, to say the least..."

_Great, Quis. Why don't you just impress the whole lot of them with your impressive skills in babbling and self-degradation_?

Ty didn't immediately reply, but continued to be cautious about his steps. Quis eventually struggled over a fallen tree and fell behind the pilot.

_That went really well_, she silently cursed herself. Today was going to be different, though. Today she wouldn't be useless. Today she'd win the day. Her stealth device would bring victory to Blue Group.

Quis accidentally caught her gear on another fallen tree. The others, not noticing, continued.

"Umm, hey!" Quis called in a hiss. "Can I have a hand here?"

*****

Rubi Jais took pride in being one of Red Group's primary intrusion members. The lead position was practically hers, with Jane Muir and Stone flanking her and Danya Faithwood bringing up the rear with her load of equipment. Her stain-mounted blaster ready for anything, Rubi and the infiltration unit carefully wound through the planetary forest. Their job was to secure the area surrounding the base and engage the enemy if necessary. Given the short length of time since touching down, Rubi was sure that they would not encounter any of Blue Group's members.

Stone signaled that he saw some movement to his right. The rest of the group froze in their tracks and watched Stone describe the motion in some quick and easy hand gestures. From what Jane could understand, the motion had come from a series of trees coming from a small hill in the distance. Rubi's eyes attempted to adjust to the pale yellow glow so she could get a slight view of the enemy. On Jane's signal, Danya pulled out her all-in-one detection device. The heat signature, she signaled back, was definitely Human.

"Why would Blue Group be so blatant?" Rubi asked in a hiss, her face a disgruntled twist of confusion.

"They haven't even had time to get this far," Danya told her team, watching carefully as her trace program ran a few lines of code. The numbers just weren't adding up. "The closest I calculate them to be is four kilometers, and _that_ way," she pointed the completely opposite direction of the movement.

Stone hadn't said much, but he had continued watching the area of the motion. Whoever the figure was had made no move since the initial sighting, and he had even appeared to be watching _them_. "I thought Intel had cleared this area for war games," Jane said, a scowl etching her face. "Are there locals to consider?"

Rubi came to a conclusion quickly. "Blue Group must have planted someone there during their landing. Can you get a read on any details?" she asked Danya quietly.

Danya punched a few commands into her equipment. Her expression changed from intent to perplexed. "They're gone," she said, and she looked up as if the person would come out into full view. Again, she checked over her screens. "They just disappeared. I'm reading no heat signatures from one kilometer out."

The four teammates remained silent for a few moments, contemplating what exactly that meant.

"Blue Group had to have planted that trick," Rubi reiterated, breaking the silence. "Quis has been hiding something ever since the war games were announced." Her face had twisted up in silent regret at not having the genius on _her_ team.

"Mekial might have something to do with it," Stone said, suspicious of just about every member of Blue Group at that point. "Or Jaren. Or _Trika_. Any one of them could have set this up."

The air began to lightly pick up speed. Only then did the four notice the air change was coming from above, as if something were causing a stir from the atmosphere. All four shifted their sights above, searching the skies for an answer.

"_That_ can't be anything Blue has," Danya mumbled quietly, watching the large form getting even larger in the night sky. She stumbled back a couple of steps to get a better view from underneath the thick foliage and couldn't help her mouth from falling open.

"Unmarked merchant vessel," Stone identified the ships touching down. He, too, stepped backwards, but only to duck away from the spotlights that were searching the plain and surrounding woods from the bottom of the craft.

"It's stolen," Rubi added, her own experiences with such craft a valuable asset. "Any ideas?"

Jane seemed to be thinking hard for some detail. "I've seen that kind of ship before. The identification numbers have been scratched from the bottom in that corner." She pointed off in the distance. "Have you all heard of the Black Fire Mercenary Group?"

Her three teammates shook their heads. "Is that one of your past alliances?" Stone asked, curious as well as anxious to learn any details of this surprise.

Jane snorted. "I couldn't make it into Black Fire if they were short of every type of personnel," she said, obviously familiar with the group. "They are a group of extraordinary precision and they only hire the best of the best... mostly those they've trained and brainwashed for more than five years."

Danya was already on the line to Captain Ski. It was difficult to explain the situation without the captain interrupting to question every sentence.

"Are you sure it's a merchant vessel?" Ski questioned, sounding agitated and a bit confused. From the background noise, Danya could tell that Kithera and Kaiba were investigating the matter from their spots on base. Their yelling was all she needed to confirm everyone from Red Group was on the same page.

Ski paused for a moment before responding, and the intrusions team waited for his instructions. The freighter had landed in the middle of the plain and sat silent for quite a while. Jane, Stone, Rubi, and Danya had effectively dropped to the ground to hide out. "I'm signaling Telia and Blue Group now. We need to regroup away from both bases and contact Intel. I'm sending Danya the coordinates for our meet. Head that way immediately," he ordered, and then cut the feed to eliminate any other noise.

With their instructions in line, Jane took the helm and ordered her team to move out on Danya's direction. They moved quickly and efficiently, ignoring the subsequent voices and shut down of the freighter's engines. As the unknown visitors began to unload their cargo, all four Talons could only think of the potential for a _real_ mission... a mission for which they could not say that they were fully prepared.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine: "I've actually got a blaster pointed at my head."**_

The soft whine of a starship's repulsorlifts slowly became audible in the distance. Jaren glanced at his chrono. _That must be the Intel shuttle that Bullwinkle is on_, he thought briefly before taking a final look around his sniping area. He had spent the last hour planning possible ways to protect against an oncoming attack.

Jaren slowly stood up, stretched, and started moving back towards his base to brief the rest of Blue Group on what he had learned. He had only moved a few meters from his sniping position when he noticed another sound that was not so familiar. Several other ships were approaching at high speed.

Jaren hit the ground as the starfighters screamed by just above tree level. He couldn't make out the type, but he was sure they were not anything that Red Group would have. What did that mean? Did someone mistake the small planet for a refueling stop? Did someone get the wrong location for a cargo drop? Neither scenario made much sense.

Beginning to make his way stealthily back to base, Jaren took note that the fighters had since grown silent and had probably landed very close to his position. Keeping his cool, he pulled out a pair of macrobinoculars and searched through the thick forest for signs of the landing. Unfortunately, he was too far away to even see the area, but he figured the landing had taken place near the plain that he knew was not too far away. Jaren pulled his communicator out of his tactical vest and set it for an encrypted burst transmission.

"Talon Five to all of Talon Squad," he began, making sure to keep very quiet. He had to steady himself to make sure he was analyzing it all properly. After all, it could have been a setup from Red Group. Maybe not. There was no way. He continued. "I have an emergency. An unknown dropship and several starfighters have landed near grid six-four. Again, starfighter support is present. I am moving to rendezvous with the _Hawk_. Over."

Jaren was about to return the communicator to his pocket when a signal came back to him. It was his team at Blue Base. Apparently Red Group had seen the same thing that he had. He plugged the coordinates into his pocket-comp and began the trek to rendezvous instead with the entire squad.

Falling into the role of the sniper, Jaren suppressed his anxiousness and settled into the mindset of a soldier, ready for any course of action the captain might decide to take.

*****

Ty and Kendrick, on the captain's order, had remained with the _Hawk_ to provide air support. From that and the fact that he had given no other indication to his intentions, the two had come to the conclusion that the Talons were going to investigate the unexpected visitors who had crashed their party. They were prepping the transport for a quick entry (or exit) and awaiting Captain Ski's further instructions, or at least an explanation for what was going on.

"Do you think Intel knows about these guys?" Ty asked casually, maybe in an attempt to make friends with Kendrick. The two had battled it out in the simulators, but it seemed Ty's more upbeat manner almost intimidated Ken.

Kendrick shrugged. "It's hard to say. Without knowing what kind of transports they've got or what their markings are, they could be anything from smugglers to mercenaries, or even worse, a branch of the Imps."

"The Imps?" Ty snorted, inspecting the space available in the cargo bay. "There's _no way_ they'd run this close to Coruscant."

"And smugglers or mercenaries _would_?" Kendrick posed back, moving some spare equipment to the side of the cargo bay. Ty was maneuvering a huge box of stain ammunition into the corner furthest from the _actual_ boxes of ammunition on the starboard side of the cargo bay. "Given that no one could properly identify the ship, though, I doubt it's Imperial."

Static began to come in from the cockpit. Both Talons dropped their current projects and rushed to the front of the transport, eager to hear what Captain Ski had to say. He had already begun by the time they settled into the pilot's and copilot's seats.

"... and Intel still assures me that the area is clear, but every piece of data we've collected proves otherwise. Muir has seen craft like this before and thinks it is the Black Fire Mercenary Group. If that is the case, they've figured out that this planet already has base support and might be looking to take it over."

"This is going to be their new base?" Ty questioned quietly, still watching and listening to his leader from the video feed.

Ski continued after reading some more information from his datapad. Apparently his conversation with Intel had not gone well. "It all makes logical sense, but only from Intel's point of view." He frowned. "An abandoned location near Coruscant would allow mercenaries to strike the New Republic fleet as they please. The threat that this group is posing to the New Republic is not something Intel is taking lightly."

"It still seems too bold of a move," Mekial voiced her opinion of the whole ordeal from off-screen.

"And it is kind of ironic that this all happened while our exercises were going on," Stone said, the sound of prepping his weapon louder than his obvious displeasure at the IHC. The Intelligence High Council had ordered Talon Intelligence Squadron into combat. All Talons were in the process of dropping their stain mounts. Thankfully, the large cargo holds in each of the ships stored quite an excessive amount of ammunition.

"We have our orders," Ski said, ignoring for the moment the questions to everything that was happening. "You all have been trained for a moment like this, and you know what to do. This cuts our training a bit short, but I've no doubts in your abilities. From here out I want you all to obey standard mission procedures and maintain the codes set apart by New Republic Intel for Talon Intelligence Squadron. Is that understood?"

Everyone, even Ken and Ty, and Kaiba and Kithera on the _Eagle_, responded with a solid affirmative. There was even some shuffling amongst certain groups. It was assumed that everyone would be performing in his native role. From what Ty and Ken could see, Stone wasn't the only one prepping his weapons.

"Fifteen," Ski addressed Rinin, who was alone because his usual Ops II teammates were running the air support, "you'll be running with Ops I as a backup support team. Support, be ready to engage if Intrusions needs you."

With their instructions in hand, the Talons geared up for their first ever run with a real enemy.

*****

It was actually quite beneficial to be dressed for war games and then be called to real duty. Talons Nine through Twelve, Intrusions, were dressed for success and prepped. Every member had at least two weapons on his person, and the only one with that and no more was Trika, who was loaded with her own weaponry of slicing materials. The infiltrators had moved toward the last recognized landing location of the supposed mercenaries. The mission at this point in the game was to see what was happening past the plain where the freighter had landed and check out the spot where Stone had last seen the rogue Human on that particular hill.

Stone was signaling everything back to Captain Ski and Support, who were not far behind their own position. As the Talons came into view of the plain, they noticed that the transport was still there, but it was now almost unloaded. Gray-clad soldiers were rushing a multitude of boxes and crates out of the cargo bay and up the hill in the distance, as if they were setting up something just over the hill. Intrusions kept silent as they trekked up the hill and slowly began to creep forward to get the first view of all the commotion.

Stone was on his communicator immediately.

"When we came in from the other direction, we didn't see this," he told Ski in an aggravated grunt. He made no effort to hide the displeasure coating his tone. "This base has to have been here for at least a few months. There's no way this kind of activity just happened overnight. They've been here a lot longer than Intel thinks."

Ski's frown was evident even without the visual aid. "Intel said that if they had set up any sort of base or perimeter, we should proceed with infiltration and retrieval of vital intelligence concerning their plans. I just got word that the New Republic has sent two cruisers for support and we can expect them at zero-seven hundred."

Jane Muir made a face at the revelation. "Is that to assist in the taking of all of these ships and the base? That's a lot of air support for a rogue group."

There was no response for a long moment, as if Captain Ski were thinking. Really, he was considering how to relay the next bit of information without getting too angry. "They're not coming to _capture_ anything."

Suddenly, it all became clear. Trika's eyes doubled in size. "We've got two hours to do the job _and_ get out before they open up?" she asked incredulously, playing absently with a few of her computer components. "Did you tell them to kiss my -"

"Talon Two has cracked a bit of the air network these guys are running on," Ski continued, attempting to get through every piece of information quickly so that he could give the intrusions team the time they would need to complete their mission. "They've set up some anti-air defense measures and other security that would enable them to scramble if anyone gets within range of their sensors and satellites. When I told that to Intel, they decided annihilation was the only course open to eliminate the threat to Coruscant. Your mission, however, stays the same."

"Wonderful," Milan scowled, probably anxious to begin killing someone in order not to lash out at his teammates.

Ski sounded like he was upset, and he had a right to be. Was his squad even ready for something like this? Intrusions had proven that they could work together, but their first live mission was meant to be a fake intrusion assignment on Coruscant. This was _real_, and the stakes were very high. Any mess-ups, even incidental ones, could remove him from his post and break apart his squad, if not get someone killed or injured. "Two came up with something. It's not much, but if you can possibly disable the security systems once you're inside, Intel might spare the base and apprehend anyone who escapes. It would put you all in a bit of a conundrum, but Support is behind you to provide cover fire and assistance on your perimeter.

"Good luck, inside. Proceed with radio silence until you've disabled any security or are ready for the _Hawk_ to pick you up. Talon Lead, out."

And that was it. The intrusions team looked each of their teammates over and decided that they had stood around long enough. With a myriad of thoughts flying through their heads, the team moved out, unsure if any of them knew what to expect or what to do.

*****

Closing her eyes momentarily, Danya tried to get a hold of herself. She was vividly aware of the squadmembers around her and the blaster strapped to her waist. She prayed that she would not be called upon to use it.

"Sir, I finished the second device," Quis alerted Captain Ski. "It will work, but only for a couple of minutes."

Captain Ski, his attention and vision lost in the horizon of the battlefront, never bothered to turn back. "I doubt we will need the second one, but keep up the good work."

Danya turned a kind face upon him. She was sitting the closest to him and could see his hazy blue eyes. Worry etched nearly every part of his face. "They'll be fine, sir," she said, calling him back to the present. Ski made an effort to look at her, and he smiled at her optimism. "You've got the best people out there. I'm sure everything is proceeding as expected."

Rinin was helping Quis with the spare parts to her stealth machine. "I've seen Intrusions survive some pretty intense practice without a flaw. They'll make it through," he said, adding to Danya's assurance.

Quis couldn't help to add her own words of encouragement, though she was practically a nervous wreck. "Support is more than prepared for assisting them, too." With a wink, she added, "They've got my stealth device, remember?"

*****

Sergeant Bullwinkle returned to the control center on his Intel transport, a little bucket of bolts he liked to call the _Claw_, with his cup of caf and pastry. There was a good deal of commotion as he took his seat. "How are the teams fairing, Ensign?" he asked his Epicanthix pilot, curious to see who had gotten "killed" or captured so far.

"I just got a transmission from Talon Two, the hacker," Ensign Qui-Sein Delph replied, bringing up some images on several screens. "There's a mercenary base near grid six-four and the squad has been ordered to infiltrate the base for reconnaissance."

Bullwinkle's eyes bulged as he spewed hot caf into the technician's face. "It's a trap!"

Ensign Delph nearly lost control of the _Claw_ for a split second as he wiped his face clean of Bullwinkle's caf. "It sure seems like that, Sergeant," the pilot answered. "I'll let you know of any more transmissions."

Bullwinkle nodded, his steel-trap of a brain hard at work. He wanted the Talons to make it back in one piece. He was getting a good deal on the food supplies, and losing one of the troops would mean leftovers, something that would permanently ruin his cooking rhythm.

*****

Jaren and Telia moved silently through the forest toward the enemy base. Their job was to set up crossfire and cover both Intrusions and their two teammates, Rubi and Mekial. The two slick Talons were poised to take advantage of the outside perimeter and plant the few explosive devices they happened to have had onboard the _Eagle _and the _Hawk_. There were two ships in particular that seemed like the best areas to target, but the two were confident they would succeed in at least blowing _something_ up.

It was good for Jaren to be working with Telia again. They complimented each other's abilities very well and, despite the fact that they weren't on the best of terms, could still work together to get the job done.

Jaren covered Telia as she climbed a large, old tree with wide branches. She perched herself high up in a position that would hide her from view. She began to prepare her rifle, recently refreshed from the stain-mounting. When she was done she signaled Jaren to do the same while she covered him.

He approached a proper position and began to prepare his rifle. After settling in for a long ordeal, he used his laser range finder to measure the distance between several points at the base. He selected a scope from his pack, attached it to his rifle, and made a few minor focusing adjustments. He then signaled to Rubi and Mekial that he and Telia were in position with a double-click of his comlink.

After a few minutes, he saw the faint form of Rubi come into view carrying a couple of small, but powerful bombs, and one certain cloaking device. The results of Quis's machine were incredible. He knew that Mekial was working twice as hard just to keep herself hidden while she planted her own explosives.

Rubi approached a stack of boxes near the open cargo bay of one of the transports, paused for a moment, then moved slowly away, carrying one less bomb.

"Seven," Jaren called to Rubi through his comlink. "Target, thirty degrees north-northwest. Twenty meters out."

She ducked back behind the boxes as a gray-clad trooper patrolled past. If she had been without the cloaking device, the trooper might have spotted her.

"Clear," Telia's voice came over the comm as the trooper moved out of view.

Rubi continued her sabotage while Mekial began her own. The support team continued their vigilance and assistance, hoping that the intrusions team was having the same bit of luck.

*****

Jane Muir led her intrusions team to a side entrance in the base and took one last look at the perfect cover set up by the support team. She knew they were likely planting the explosive devices by now, and they had to hurry.

Trika snapped off the cover to the password-protected lock and inspected it for insertion areas. She frowned, seeing no such place for her devices. "Piece of Bothan excrement," she mumbled inaudibly, keying in a couple of basic commands and scrolling through the couple of instructions the lock gave for entering. _Two-zero-four-eight encryption_, _standard advanced algorithms on a single-mute system_, she thought, running through three different logic charts in her head. This is exactly what the slicer ate, drank, and breathed every day. It was time to perform. Pressing the final command, she watched as line after line of code began to fly across her vision. Catching each one and manually computing the answer in her head, she awaited the final line and punched in the ten-digit code that resulted from all of her computation. Just as the rest of the group was getting impatient, the door flung open with a satisfying _whoosh_.

Trika slapped the cover back onto the lock and gave a short chuckle. _Amateurs_, she thought with a satisfied smirk.

The infiltration team rushed in and took a defensive formation – perfect for unknown scenarios such as this one. Blasters charged and aimed, Jane and Milan spread out in front while Stone and Trika supported them from the back.

The door slid shut behind them. Not a soul stirred as Jane and Milan traced separate lines with their laser sights down the two barren hallways that ran perpendicular to each other through the base. Stone and Trika had similar weaponry, but their sights were on completely different items. Stone's video recordings would help Intel determine structural anomalies that could single out similar structures belonging to Black Fire Mercenary Group. Trika's electronic machinery would map out most security feeds and terminal technology.

"Clear," Trika informed her teammates. "The base has been here a while, but apparently it's still too new for a lot of security feeds. We're safe as long as we stick to the hallways."

Milan turned to his partner. "Which way, Eleven?"

Trika studied her equipment screens. "I'm reading possible terminal plugs in both directions, but the most information is traveling _that_ way," she pointed to the right, following the trail of electric power running through the compound.

"What if they rerouted their information to hit somewhere else first?" Stone asked.

"It is a possibility," the cold Jane Muir conceded. "We should split up."

Milan tensed, a good sign he wasn't fond of the idea. "I think we should stay together. There's no need to get caught by splitting up. We have plenty of time left to hit both locations if the first is a dud."

Jane shook her head, with her mind obviously made up. "I don't want to miss anything big. If we reach two spots and can analyze them both, we'll know we've gotten all of the information, just in case of a data split. It won't take that long in the end and might lead to something else," she explained herself. "Ten and I will take the left and signal two clicks if we find something."

Stone began to see the potential as well. "I can get double the footage. It could help not only Intel, but our teammates right now."

His deep, brown eyes narrowed, Milan backed off. "Let's do it, then," he said, his tone an indication that the only reason he gave in was because Nine, in fact, outranked him. With a flick of his wrist and a slap from his other hand, he made sure his BlasTech carbine was charged and ready.

The two partnerships split down separate hallways. _One hour and forty-five standard minutes to eliminate the air defense system and hack the base_, Milan thought as he and Trika stalked down the dark, gray hallway, _or else I'll never be able to throttle Jane Muir for her tactical ignorance._

*****

"This feed is incredible," Danya marveled, showing Captain Ski everything that Stone's equipment was recording. "Where did we get this stuff?"

Captain Ski hid a slick smile. "You don't want to know where we got the equipment, but the credit for the tweaking goes to Quis."

Danya gave a brief nod the engineer's way. She and Rinin were still working on the second stealth device, but she had the time to give a curt, shy smile. The hacker continued to sort the images as they came in from the base. "Some of these are coming out at a resolution well above twenty-five hundred by fifteen hundred, _and_ in this kind of action!"

Suddenly, before Ski could take another look at some of the footage, the feed cut and died. Danya stared blankly at the now equally blank screen. "Whoa, wait a second. Who took all the pretty pictures away?"

Quis, almost sensing a problem, ran over to see what was happening. She was on the matter in an instant, probably being the most familiar with the equipment Stone was carrying. "Four to Ten: something is interfering with your signal. The footage might be good on your end, but we can't see anything that's going on."

No answer.

"Ten?" Kevin called to Stone. Danya was busy trying to bring her signal back, and Quis was inspecting her routing equipment to make sure everything was transmitting properly.

"Something's been done to his electronics or they've got a jam on him," Danya said worriedly, looking up at her captain.

"You said they split up?" he asked his partner, suddenly getting a bad feeling about the entire situation.

Danya nodded. "No more than ten minutes ago."

"Switch comms to Milan and Trika," he ordered. "Something weird is going on."

*****

Danya was not the only one who noticed that something was amiss.

"Sarge, something just happened with the feed," Ensign Delph called to the Talons' cook. "It just... well, it just disappeared."

"Well, I'll be!" Bullwinkle exclaimed, sipping on another mug of caf. "This is strange indeed. Like that time my gre'-gran'poppa ate my gre'gran'mama's poisoned doughnuts. He burped 'em up and ran off cursin' obscenities, but we never saw 'im again!"

Qui-Sein paid the cook half of his attention. He continued monitoring the controls, hoping the feed would quickly resume.

*****

"This one is actually encrypted twice," Trika explained to Milan, who was dragging the body of the lone guard he had taken out away from the panel where Trika needed to work. The base, as they had come to find, was under minimal security, and Milan had taken care of that. Black Fire was apparently counting on their air defense to prevent intruders.

They apparently hadn't counted on the Talons being on the ground.

"And you do that all in your head?" Milan asked curiously, not quite understanding anything to do with hacking or slicing. He set the body down in the corner of the small room they had found just off the eastern corridor.

Trika chuckled. "That's what they pay me the massive credits for. There aren't too many in the Sector who can do this kind of thing without machinery to help."

"Sounds ridiculous," Milan returned, not familiar with much more except killing. He was now keeping watch down both ends of the hallway just outside their door.

The blessed green light gave her the go-ahead. "It's saving your butt, mister," she told him flatly. "Did you know that some security systems will cause the entire base or ship to self-destruct if I don't crack it in time?"

"Like this one?" the Kiffar returned, expecting Trika to continue rattling off useless facts and pointless praises for her trade.

Trika snorted. "No, but that would make for a _really_ cool, heroic story to tell everybody once we get out of here." She began to count to herself, coming to some form of an answer. "This one does seem to have some funny alarms attached at either end... unless I can make a path around..."

Before Milan could respond with his _extreme_ appreciation for her skills, both Talons heard Captain Ski ringing in their ears. "We've got a situation."

Milan tightly gripped his weapon and scowled. "What _kind_ of a situation?" he demanded.

"Two has just lost visual and audio connections with Nine and Ten," Kevin said, informing him that they had effectively lost all contact with Jane and Stone. "They might have run in to some trouble. We need the two of you to check it out. I'm alerting Five and the rest of the support team to the situation."

"I sent the signal that we found a terminal," Milan told the captain. "They should be on their way."

"They might have been captured," Kevin replied, hiding the sigh of worry that had forced its way to his throat. "They might not have gotten that signal."

"Sir," Trika began, still typing codes to remember into her spare datapad, "I'm dealing with some heavy code and can't really afford to leave to play games. Now, I can either go play hide-and-seek with my teammates, or I can keep the squad alive. Ultimately," she continued to ramble, "it's your choice, but I'd say -"

"Wait, you haven't heard from them _since_ the split? Why haven't they signaled in?" Kevin interrupted. "You don't know where they are?"

Trika stopped decoding and turned to look at Milan with a thoroughly frustrated face. "We all went silent until someone found something of value. We haven't heard a word," she told Ski, following a gaze from her partner that she thought most odd. As soon as she saw Stone being escorted into the room with his hands in front of his body and in bonds by the impressively intimidating Jane Muir, Trika knew that Kevin was right. They _did_ have a situation.

"Never mind," Trika called back nonchalantly, unsure of what exactly was going on. "I think we found them."

"Good," Ski replied, seeming to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Not really," Trika countered, seeing Muir train her two nasty blasters on both her and Milan, who was being motioned to toss his own weapon away. "I've actually got a blaster pointed at my head."

Trika didn't get to relay any further information and didn't even have time to imagine the look on Captain Ski's face. Muir grabbed the slicer's small headset, threw it on the ground, and crunched it with the heel of her boot. She moved quickly to Milan and snatched his own comm from his grip, tossing it into the wall and smashing it into tiny pieces.

"You're not funny, Trika," Muir kept her teammates still with her weapons, moving back behind the flat-faced Stone. With little more than a smooth, single motion, Muir slammed Stone's head into the wall and sent him sprawling to the floor. With one blaster aimed at Milan and another at the slicer, she approached Trika quickly, causing her to back against the terminal wall where she had been working. Muir met her step for step until the blaster was pressed hard against Trika's forehead. She smiled wickedly. "And you never will be, unless you do _exactly_ as I say."

Milan made a quick move for his side holster. Muir, never even looking his way, charged the blaster for firing at Trika. "You can toss that aside, too," she said with haughty confidence, hardly looking back at the angry Kiffar. Her complete focus was on Trika. He obeyed with a pang of regret and moved closer to Stone to make sure the corpsman was all right.

"Now," Muir smirked slightly, gesturing toward the terminal, "exit the program without deactivating the air defenses."

Trika looked puzzled despite the worry of the barrel of Muir's blaster on her forehead. "You know what will happen if I don't finish the codes."

Muir narrowed her eyes and pressed the blaster harder into Trika's skull, making the slicer unconsciously clench her eyes shut against the somewhat frightening image of Muir showing her true colors. "I'm _not_ stupid!" She was on the verge of yelling. "Just do it!"

The slicer hesitated turning around. She calmed herself and did so, but not without a question. "So, are you Black Fire or what?" It seemed a rather stupid question, but it was the only way Trika knew how to keep Muir somewhat engaged in conversation.

"I'm a lot more than that," Muir offered, keeping an eye on Milan and Stone, who was now on his feet again. The medic was sporting a nasty gash on his left temple and a river of blood streaming down his jaw line.

Trika kept her nimble fingers busy punching in codes. "So, you're not on the maps?" she ventured, attempting to connect the few facts that she knew. Trika felt Muir's blaster on the back of her head, and despite the harsh chill of the metal, she continued. "I mean," she explained herself with a gulp, "you've obviously found a way out of here, but you can't turn us in without turning yourself in. Lowering the defenses would prevent your escape, though, right?"

"I've my reasons and my orders. When my superior arrives later on, none of this secrecy will matter," Muir snarled. "Just don't try anything funny."

The young Chinaési woman pushed the final digit series into the terminal, the resulting green light a signal she had succeeded. She backed away slowly, pleased with her work. Muir seemed to know what had happened before the ensuing power surge spiked the lights and a general alert sounded that the air defenses had lifted. Against Muir's desire and threat, Trika had successfully accomplished the Talons' original mission.

Stone and Milan gave somewhat satisfied chuckles as Trika turned around to look a fuming Jane Muir in the eyes. "You said I wasn't funny, and technically, I can't _pull_ anything funny if I'm not," the slicer smirked, satisfied with pulling one over on the traitorous Muir. "So, I hate to say it, but this is all _your_ fault."

Muir's blaster had not moved, now pointing between those stupid, slanted green eyes. "That was extremely foolish for someone with a weapon at her head," she glared at her former teammate, whose stupid grin made her whole face look twice as ridiculous.

"You're not getting away now," Stone told the traitor despite the pain of feeling his pulse in his eyes and ears. He wiped what blood he could off his cheek with his tied hands. "New Republic cruisers should be here within the hour, and Jaren and Telia will snipe you before the exit door closes behind you. There's no way you're getting past Support."

Muir gave as evil of a glare as she had ever given. "Well, that's not exactly true," she said with chilling calm, turning her gaze back at Trika. "I'm going to have a little bit of assistance from my three best friends."

It was all too sudden to stop. Muir dropped her blaster's aim and pulled the trigger, shooting Trika almost point-blank in the stomach. The computer technician took the hit into the terminal wall.

Stone made a move for Trika before Muir switched her targeting. "_Pustina saen_!" he cursed sharply at the woman, his only concern to tend to his wounded teammate. A gasping Trika slid to the floor slowly and slumped over face-first, her hands clenching her torn gut.

Milan's death-look rested on Muir, but the treacherous woman could not have been cooler. "The Talons won't rest until you are killed," Milan threatened, his voice shaking with fury. He managed a look at his partner, who had come to rest on the floor and had stopped moving altogether.

"Pick her up," Muir ordered the Kiffar warrior gruffly. "_That_ should keep your hands from doing anything they shouldn't." Milan, in an odd display of concern, forgot that he had a weapon trained on him and rushed to his partner's side. Turning Trika over slowly, Milan cupped his right hand behind her neck and pressed his left to her ghastly wound, hoping to stem the flow of blood pouring from it. The slicer's eyes came back to the front and she locked eyes with him briefly. Her lips attempted to form a word, but the air around her suddenly disappeared, her gasps paining her to tears. She took another breath before the suffering had her shaking. Milan gripped her body protectively in his arms before she sank into unconsciousness.

"Let me help her!" Stone practically pleaded, knowing how vital it was that his teammate received medical attention. Muir's blaster would have cauterized the wound had it been from a decent distance away, but Stone knew that such a close shot would have only opened up a serious hole that could kill a person in minutes.

Muir smiled sarcastically at the growing hatred bleeding from both Stone and Milan. "We're taking a walk, gentlemen." She gestured to the room's door. "I have an exit to make before your friends in the sky arrive, and based upon your cooperation in getting to my ship and the adjacent medical facility, we will all see whether Trika will get to live."


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten: "You blew up the back wall!"**_

"Get on the line with Intel," Captain Ski barked to Danya. "Tell them to hold their fire; we need everyone they can spare on the ground!

"Lead to Support," he called to the technical "Plan B" in the squad, "you're on. You're going into a hot situation. Assume hostiles in all sectors -"

"Sir, you may want to hear this." Danya re-looped the comm feed so that Kevin could hear what she had found. Nine clicks sounded through the feed, the last noise that was sent from the inside.

"Milan clicked his comm nine times before everything went dead," she continued, playing the sounds one more time. The feed was as much of a puzzle as anything else.

"Does 'nine' mean anything structurally? Nine sectors?" Ski put Support on hold. "Nine hostiles?"

"Nothing, sir," Danya replied, trying to simultaneously help her captain, read data from the system, and contact Intel at the same time. "It couldn't have been a glitch. I had those comms checked out three times before we left..."

Danya trailed off into silence and thought, then held back a gasp. "Holy shavitt, wait a second. The air defenses just went down!"

"Trika got through?" Rinin asked hopefully.

"Looks like," Danya replied, checking her figures once more. "The main power grid has been shut down and the auxiliary system is booting up. They're working at half-capacity for the air network and without support for their defense system. Trika's the only one who could have done it. She's tripped their signals."

The confusion only mounted when Quis spoke up. "Nine," she said flatly, as if they hadn't realized the word was a number. "Nine. _Talon_ Nine. Milan means that _Nine_ is our target."

Everyone turned to look at the engineer, their faces displaying different degrees of shock, disbelief, and skepticism.

"Lieutenant Muir?" Rinin snorted incredulously.

Kevin gave her an odd look. "I think that conclusion is a little premature. What makes you think that, Three?"

Quis shrugged. "I've always had a bad feeling about her anyway, sir, and plus, I can't imagine Milan signaling security issues when he could have the opportunity to kill them all by himself."

*****

Stone continued to look worriedly over Trika. The young slicer was still unconscious, and perhaps that was for the better. Her pale features signaled death was near, and her breathing had become very, very shallow. "Does this medical area of yours even exist?" he questioned with as much spite as he could.

Milan, despite his massive frame and light cargo, stumbled about like a drunken sailor. It seemed that he was not necessarily paying attention to where he was going, occasionally having to steady himself against the wall with his right hand to keep from jostling Trika too badly.

Muir, at the very least, was highly annoyed, keeping her prisoners at bay from the front of the pack, her blasters pointed in their direction. "I'm taking a round-about path unless, of course, you'd like to spend some time in a Black Fire detention cell." True, the base was minimally guarded, but she definitely knew her way around the place, which made it even more curious that she didn't want to reveal herself to any operatives that might have been about.

Their journey had brought them to the southernmost sector, and as they rounded the final corner in the maze that was the inner hallways, both a hangar exit and a medical service area appeared.

Muir stopped to motion the two intrusion team members into the facility, a sterile room with bright white walls and several cabinets hanging above three separate counters. There was also a lone table in the middle of the room for patients. "Feel free to use anything you'd like." She rolled her eyes before saying the next sentence with as much sarcasm as she could muster. "I'm sure you'll figure a way out before security finds you here."

Stone, still in his bonds, ran to the table and swept his forearms across its glossy surface to clear it of the spare medical supplies. Milan had rushed in as well, carefully laying the wounded Trika onto the table. He quickly took a set of wire cutters from Trika's bag and began to cut the connections between the strong, metal bonds holding Stone's hands. As soon as he was free, Stone grabbed for his bag and began to do what he could for the dying slicer.

Milan turned to face Jane Muir, who had paused long enough to give him a wink of arrogance. She aimed her blaster for the control panel to the medical facility and fired, sending the sliding door flying shut. The trained Kiffar took the same wire cutters he had just used on Stone's bonds and gave it a focused hurl in her direction, the newly christened weapon making it through the closing door and narrowly missing a dodging Muir. Her smile showed her obvious superiority, that is, until the knife that followed hit her just below her right clavicle.

Twelve strode the remaining distance to the medical facility's lone window and gazed hard at the faltering woman. Her firm confidence fell for just a moment before she stood erect, took the blade by the handle, and ripped it from her chest without so much as a cry. The blade dripped her blood, but as she stared back hard at her newfound enemy, she noticed that _her_ blood was probably the least of her worries. Milan stood there in a ruined camouflaged uniform, Trika's red blood staining much of his chest. In all honesty, Muir found the sight quite frightening, but there was no time to think about any of that. With her shot to the control panel came a siren, and a lockdown in the sector became imminent. They may have just been able to sneak around the base, but that prospect was very doubtful now that everyone knew _exactly_ where they were.

He watched her leave, walking out of his sight victorious. As Jane Muir approached the hangar door, she gave a final look his direction, then disappeared.

"Milan!" Stone yelled for the third time. The large Kiffar turned around to see his teammate handling bacta and several instruments that didn't appear as if they belonged anywhere in a medical facility. "You've got to help me or else she's not going to make it!"

He might have looked offended for Stone saying such a thing, but he complied, stepping up to the table and ignoring the sirens, the flickering lights of a lockdown, and the large explosions coming from down the hallway.

*****

The alarms had begun to sound as soon as Rubi Jais had punched in the final digits of the side door's code, a nice gift from Danya and the feed that Stone had taken of Trika's initial crack of the same door. It slid open anyway, but the once barren hallways were instead scattered with the gray-suited operatives of Black Fire. Jaren took aim at the first one and fired. The shot hit his upper torso and lifted him off the ground for a second, the power of Jaren's modified rifle nothing to doubt. From behind, Telia let fly another scarlet bolt of energy. The support team rushed into chaos, and by the time they had all entered the building completely and the door behind them closed, eight different bodies lay dead on the ground.

"Superior firepower," Rubi chuckled a bit too sadistically, reloading her weapon and securing her two side arms.

Mekial got the nod from Jaren that she had been waiting for. She took out what looked like a transmitter and pushed the obvious button on top. Several loud explosions erupted from outside, and the four shared a brief, knowing smile with one another.

Jaren moved forward and peered down the left hallway, making sure to step over the two bodies in his way. He almost missed it, but the little light in the facility had accented the smear just enough so that he caught the sharp difference. He hurried to the wall and motioned for his team to follow. What he saw disturbed him, but he had to look past that and use the evidence to proceed.

"Fingerprints. It's blood," he said, rather dumbfounded. The others gathered around more closely for a look, as if to make sure Lieutenant Kai had correctly identified the red substance. "The smear was made a while ago, but it is still somewhat wet."

"It continues." Mekial pointed down the hallway, and suddenly, the group had a definite direction. Someone had left clues to follow, but the fact that the clues were large handprints of blood made it more disturbing than amazing. Throwing all caution aside, Jaren gripped his rifle tightly and picked up his pace, following the cryptic message down the corridor.

The blood path never let up or became dull, and it never became less disturbing. Support had wound its way to the southern sector of the base, the beginnings of a lockdown in progress. The team rounded the last corner and came to an abrupt halt, seeing a sight that they had never hoped for in their wildest imaginations.

"Oh, no." Telia's heart sank upon seeing the remnants of the infiltration team in a bloodied mess. She was the first to try the door before realizing they were stuck.

Their entrance had grabbed at least Milan's attention, whose unusually sad eyes told the entire story of what had happened. He made sure Stone was all right for the moment before leaving Trika's side to meet Jaren at the wide window nearest the door. "It's Jane," he said flatly, pointing a bloody finger toward the hangar bay. "She's close to getting away."

Jaren gave one look at Telia and knew what they had to do. He turned to Rubi and Mekial, who were already working on the door. "Get them out of here as quickly as possible," he ordered, reaching into his tactical vest and pulling out a small homing beacon. "Set this for the _Hawk_ and secure Intrusions. We'll rendezvous at the ship before giving the signal to lift. Understood?"

"Yes, sir." Both women nodded, making themselves busy with the work of opening the door. Mekial appeared to have found some suitable wiring to mess with and Rubi had the supplies from her bag already out and ready.

Jaren and Telia replaced large rifles with snub-nosed blasters more suitable for close quarters before taking off toward the hangar. With a nod, the duo burst through the door and covered each other's entrance. A shot from the far right nearly nicked Telia, who ducked behind a stockpile of crates to avoid becoming another Talon casualty. Jaren was quick enough to get a shot off before joining Telia behind the convenient wall of durasteel.

"Did you see her?" he asked quietly, trying to find a peeping hole somewhere between the crates.

Before she could answer, the telltale voice of Jane Muir called to the two snipers. "You're out of your league, Kai!" she yelled. "Don't get yourselves killed."

In response, Telia popped up from her position and let fly at least four good shots. The idea was not to necessarily hit Muir, but to better gauge her position and the situation. As she came back behind the crates, several shots followed her. "She has a group of three guards with her," she told her partner, who was also attempting to form a better plan than the almost crazy one they were currently employing. "They're loaded, too. We've got to figure something else out."

Jaren took out his comlink and gave a buzz to two unlikely players in their game. "Thirteen, Fourteen? Do you copy?" Hopefully, Kithera and Kaiba were awaiting instructions and not chatting about the finer points of men and weaponry.

It took a while for the two women to respond, more than likely a result of having been bored instead of chatting. "We're here, Five," Kaiba returned, perky as ever. "Need some assistance?"  
"I'm setting off a homing beacon," he told the ladies piloting the _Eagle_ before two more shots flew overhead. Apparently, Muir wasn't satisfied to keep the two pinned down. Telia jumped up briefly and fired away, causing the advancing mercenary officers to take cover behind a rather large transport. "I want you to check the signal and blow out the southernmost wall where we are."

He could hear the engines firing up in the background. "Are you sure that's safe, Five?" Kithera asked with a bit of hesitance.

Telia ducked behind the crates again and checked her charges. She was still good for the going. "Trust me," he said, hurriedly releasing the comm connection and giving another nod to Telia.

Telia took his nod and knew what Jaren had in mind. She turned slightly to her right and, as she heard Jaren stand and unload a dozen rapid-fire shots, she launched herself toward a dormant droid load lifter several meters away. She arrived at her new cover just as Jaren ducked back down and replaced his blaster's expended power pack.

Several shots scorched the other side of Jaren's hiding place. The Black Fire soldiers were acting more cautiously now, but they wouldn't sit still forever.

Jaren started edging his way toward one side of the crates, keeping low to hide his movements. Telia didn't need a signal to know that he would make a break for a large support beam against the far wall, using several smaller stacks of pallets for cover as he ran.

Both snipers moved as one. Jaren rose and fired twice, then slid around the stack of blackened crates that been protecting him. Telia laid down heavy suppressing fire as he ran. A small voice in the back of her mind marveled briefly at the coordination between them. No orders had been issued, no hand signals exchanged. She just _knew_ what Jaren was going to do and had acted on that knowledge almost without thinking.

Jaren fired several shots as he ran, all of which spattered harmlessly against the shuttle's armor. As he reached the support pillar, he didn't even slow down. He crashed full-tilt into the wall, taking the impact against his left side and settled down with his back against the base of the pillar.

Even from this distance, Telia could see that he was suppressing a smirk. She felt a sudden heat of annoyance wash over her face. One unlucky soldier tentatively ventured out of cover before Telia had returned to hers, and he took the brunt of her anger as a blaster bolt vaporized the center of his helmet. He crumpled to a heap on the floor.

Jaren fired one more volley at the soldiers and then the two snipers took cover against unusually heavy return fire. Telia threw both of her blasters down. "Dead," she said, reaching back for her rifle. Jaren tossed his aside as well. At that moment, they could have used that backup... and more.

*****

"I can't merge the connection," Mekial growled, taking a series of wires and attempting to reconnect the split ends of what had previously been scorched by Jane Muir's blaster bolt. Rubi was having her own troubles with the control panel and the subsequent switches and wires. Finally, Mekial tossed the wires aside and reached for her comlink.

"Are you calling Four?" Rubi asked, thinking that Quis might have a better idea of how to extract the intrusions team.

Mekial halted Rubi in her tracks by throwing the communicator to the ground and smashing the equipment into pieces. The woman of many talents began picking through the remnants. "Can you find the relay coil?" she asked, still searching the mess.

Inside the medical room, Stone and Milan were yelling at each other. Rubi lifted her gaze just high enough to make sure that Trika was still alive. The odd-looking woman appeared to still be breathing, but Stone was continuing to care for her with the most meager of tools and equipment. Bloodied cloths and tools lay strewn across the counter behind him.

Above, the lights were flickering, still in lockdown mode. Down the hallway, voices could be heard.

"_Shavitt_. They're here. Rubi?" Mekial prompted her attention. Instead, the spy reached for her sidearm and crouched nearer to the wall. Mekial moved out of her way and began to piece together her own contraption. The pieces fit together rather poorly, but they would have to work.

The sounds down the hallway were getting closer, and Rubi pulled around the corner to fire. She pulled back quickly, yelling that she had seven or so to hold off. Mekial's eyes bulged a tad before the sparks began to fly from behind her, the energy bolts coming in heavily from the hallway.

"You've got to hold them!" Mekial called back, standing up to place her new contraption into the control panel. Rubi took the comment and returned back into the fray. A couple of satisfying yelps followed, but not enough to warrant a celebration. Mekial banged her fist loudly on the window to the medbay. "You guys need to back away!" she called to them, setting what looked like a charge and backing away herself.

Rubi had pulled back once more, but seeing the set charge, turned the corner one last time and disappeared, advancing on the remaining Black Fire operatives. The explosion behind her rocked her forward slightly, throwing her off balance just enough to give the one blaster bolt a chance at her left shoulder.

Mekial, fortunately, was right behind her, catching Rubi before she actually fell. Mekial shot the last three operatives square in the face and finished the job. All seven of the operatives lay strewn in the hallway. Mekial pulled Rubi back to the southern wall and made sure the shot was not serious.

Rubi clenched her jaw shut and attempted not to gasp at the pain shooting through her shoulder. "I'm fine." Gritting her teeth, Rubi pushed Mekial away and waved her hand, motioning for Mekial to leave her alone. Her partner could tell the wound was not serious, but it was definitely deep enough to need tending to once their ordeal was completed.

Mekial checked her homing beacon to make sure it was still working. The _Hawk_ was more than likely ready for them through the hangar. It was still unclear, however, whether Jaren and Telia had encountered Jane Muir or not. She stepped over the wreckage from the sealed door and entered the medbay to the same troubling scene she had imagined. The whole of the intrusions team was covered in blood and they were a frenzy of emotions.

"How is she?" Mekial dared to ask Stone despite the mumblings of a particularly angry Milan Lirac. The medic appeared to be done with his work for the moment at least, for he was standing back and observing the patient from the counter.

He appeared distracted, worried, stressed, and upset, all at one time. Stone looked away from Trika to give Mekial his attention. "She's stable enough to move, but that patch is strictly last-ditch," he sighed, then turned around to tuck away his tools. "We're looking at serious blood loss, damage sustained to the lower internal organs, maybe even _septicemia_ if I didn't patch that hole in the intestine fast enough. We've got to get her some steady bacta treatment or else she's going to die, slow and ugly."

Mekial put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, trying to put the gory thoughts of Trika's death out of her mind. "You've done what you can," she said with a light, but warm smile. "But if you've got a little more in you, Seven is in the hallway and could probably use a wrap for her arm."

Stone jumped suddenly, unaware that Rubi had been hurt. "Where is she?" he asked, rushing out of the med facility and finding the injured woman already at work on her own wound. It seemed that the medic was quite up to the task of doing his job. Mekial barely watched him leave before moving to grab Milan.

"Let's get her out of here," she implored him, grasping his colossal arm and pulling his attention to the present. The hulking Kiffar, whose massively larger frame easily outweighed her own by forty to fifty kilograms, looked down at her big blue eyes and nodded.

The two Talons gingerly lifted the unconscious Trika and made sure that Milan could keep her steady enough during the journey to the _Hawk_. Despite the gravity of the situation, Mekial couldn't help chuckling at the thought. Milan's hold on his partner was incredibly strong and she doubted he would need any help carrying the light cargo.

Mekial and Milan came out of the medbay just in time to see Stone helping Rubi to her feet. He had wrapped her shoulder and made sure, at her request, that she still had a blaster in her other hand.

"We should hurry." Rubi hid a grimace. "The _Hawk_ should be on its way."

Mekial was already attempting to call Jaren. "Five, this is Eight. What's your status?"

The only response she received was a large explosion.

*****

"You blew up the back wall!" Kithera screamed, looking out the viewport of the _Eagle_ at the smoldering destruction of the base.

"That's what Jaren _told_ us to do!" Kaiba screamed back.

"But you took out _three-fourths_ of the hangar!" Kithera slapped her forehead. "Do you see anybody?" If there was any sort of bonus points to be gained for her leadership capabilities, this little event certainly wasn't going to work in her favor.

The two women were apparently not the only ones trying to peer through the smoke and wreckage. The explosion from the modified transport's turbolasers had taken out a serious chunk of the southern section of the base. The rest of the infiltration team, along with Mekial and Rubi, stood amidst pieces of broken wall and roof. Deciding not to wait any longer for assistance or for the _Hawk_, Milan led the rest of the group out of the base and toward the awaiting transport. Kaiba put the craft down onto the ground and opened up the cargo bay.

"Look!" Kithera pointed to the hangar, where a steady shootout was taking place between Black Fire operatives and what appeared to be Jaren and Telia. The two were moving quickly toward their exit, but Black Fire wasn't letting them off easily. The two were pinned to a stack of crates, still deep in the hangar.

"I'm going out there," Kithera said, releasing her restraints and moving toward the back. "Keep this bird ready to go!"

Kaiba began to protest, but knew it would do no good. The best she could hope for right at that moment was for a quick end to the ongoing battle happening right outside her viewport.

*****

Mekial made sure Milan and Stone could handle their two wounded companions before heading back into the fray to find Jaren and Telia. She was surprised when a form began running out of the cargo bay.

"Lieutenant Rinani?"

"Yep. You got it," Kithera responded, charging two blasters and giving a nod Mekial's way. "Let's get them out of there so _we_ can get out of here."

The two women charged ahead tactically, only shooting when spotted and drawing fire away from their teammates. Jaren and Telia took the opportunity for what it was and ran, dodging fire from all around and returning it when prudent. The air for a moment was abuzz with energy bolts and noise, much of the base alive with the sound of air support. Starfighters were beginning to make an appearance, and the distant sound of the _Hawk_ could be heard.

Jaren knew they had to move fast. He knew they were in trouble from the sounds in the air. Behind their foes a dozen or so new operatives were filing in and ready to capture or kill both of them. "Get ready," he told Telia, firing one last shot before preparing to cover her. "You've got to run."

She nodded. On his signal, the two snipers jumped up and ran, with Jaren's coverage blowing small craters into the hangar floor and walls. Mekial and Kithera added their own chaos, and when Telia and Jaren reached the midway point, the quartet ran for all they were worth. The shots that flew past them were fluke shots in a fleeting attempt to score a mark. Never did anyone think someone would actually get hit.

That's why nobody noticed the shot that hit Jaren in the back of the knee.

He went down hard, and face first. Only when he was that close to the ground could he feel the speeder bikes approaching. He rolled onto his back and saw the massive surge in the base defenses, and the massive surge in Black Fire operatives. He twisted around slightly to see Telia, Kithera, and Mekial make it into the _Eagle_'s cargo bay. The bulk of the transport was under heavy fire from various sources, and he then realized that if the craft didn't lift, it would be overtaken and destroyed.

"_Eagle_, this is Five, lift _now_!" he screamed into his comlink. "Let's get out of here!"

The cargo bay shut quickly and the repulsorlifts were already fired up for take off. In a roar of thrust, the _Eagle_ rose into the air and took off toward the distant north, to where it would hopefully meet up with the _Hawk_. Jaren keenly felt the pain shooting up his left thigh, throbbing in his knee. He grabbed at the wound, aware of the small group of operatives surrounding him and leveling blaster rifles his way.

Without a word, the rough men in gray uniforms lifted him to his feet. The group parted slightly to make room for one more, and it was a face he was _not_ happy to see.

The wound in his leg was now the _least_ of his worries. "Lieutenant," Jane Muir addressed him in mock-formality. "I never really got to know you before this whole fiasco, and I'd like to have the opportunity to know _everything_ about you and your involvement with the New Republic. Lieutenant Rinani would have been an added bonus, but I'm sure that we'll make up for whatever we would be missing."

If there was one thing Jaren knew, it was that enemy snipers were never very welcome guests in the company of interrogators.

*****

Mekial continued her sprint all the way into the cockpit where Kaiba was piloting them away from the base. Her eyes were wide and her expression even wider. "That was _so_ incredibly nuts!"

Rubi was sitting with Kaiba in the copilot's seat, nursing a newly taped wound. "What, did you go and try to get yourself killed back there?" she asked with a smirk, understanding well the consequences of participating in a firefight.

The transport wound back to the original meet location. The mission, although twisted, was largely a success. Kaiba nodded out the viewport at the _Hawk_, which was running parallel to their course. "I sent a message that we got both groups. The _Hawk_ picked up Ops instead. We should be able to wait out the New Republic backup and provide some minor air support."

"When are they due to arrive?" Mekial asked, seemingly calming down as the transport began to land. Even having cheated death, the spirited woman couldn't have been any more cheerful.  
"Any minute now," Kaiba said, prepping the _Eagle_ for a landing. "Captain Ski received their confirmation of our crack of the air defense system a few minutes ago, and they are in position to begin an attack sequence."

"Go back!" a voice from the back screamed. "We left him!"

Kaiba continued her landing procedure. The voice sounded like Telia's, and it was getting closer. "What did she just say?"

Telia burst through to the cockpit. "You've got to go back!" she was practically pleading. "Turn around! We left him!"

"Who?" Rubi asked.

"Jaren," she explained further, almost at the verge of tears. "He's not onboard. We left him behind!"

The _Eagle_ safely landed before Kaiba made an effort to contact the _Hawk_. "Lead, this is Fourteen," she called to Captain Ski. "We've got a situation."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven: "You must have missed the part about there being very dangerous weapons down there."**_

"You guys _left_ him?"

"We didn't know," Kithera explained for the tenth time. She was becoming more frustrated with every vindictive question and comment. The entire squad had gathered in the _Hawk_'s cargo bay to discuss the specifics of the mission and what had just happened.

"Stop making accusations," Ski ordered his group, "especially if you were not there to do something differently." He narrowed his order to the members of his Ops group, who seemed to think that they would not have left Jaren if _they_ had been in the situation. "We're in this _right now_ and it doesn't matter what _might_ have happened." He let out a brief sigh of frustration. "Sergeant Bullwinkle knows the situation and is on his way."

Danya waved her arm for attention, her other hand pressing her earpiece in an attempt to listen to Intel's further instructions. "You guys aren't going to believe this," she said, still paying attention to some of the feed. "They've known about this base all along."

"We've figured out that much just from our suspicions," Rinin said, his lekku twitching in agitation. "What are the _schutta_ saying now?"

The hacker ripped the piece from her ear and threw it to the ground in annoyance. "Well, they've taken what intelligence we've sent them and made up a bunch of garbage about knowing the schematics and every detail of this base," she said, her frown telling her opinion of _that_ particular piece of information. "That's probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Kendrick shrugged, knowing little of the intelligence the Talons had gathered. "Wouldn't that kind of stuff be held in the code that Trika picked up?"

Danya shook her head. "Trika may be many things, but she's not an idiot," she told him and the rest of the group. "She didn't risk running a decrypt program while gathering the intel because it would have cost her time and possibly given away their position. It probably would have taken her ten times as long to do it."

"They couldn't have decrypted it themselves?" Quis asked, also unknowledgeable about hacking and their intel.

Danya again shook her head. "They haven't had enough time," she scoffed. "I doubt that Trika and I will have it all decrypted by next week."

Stone interrupted with a rather important point as he started filling the emergency bacta tank. "Sorry to be the party-pooper, but Trika's not going to be doing much of anything if we don't get her back to Coruscant," he reminded everyone. The solemn reminder did not fall on deaf ears, and the squad's reaction was equally somber.

Captain Ski took the helm. "Sergeant Bullwinkle will be headed back to Coruscant," he said. "Rubi, I want you to escort Trika back to the Nest and make sure she gets into a bacta tank. Stone, you'll head out with them to keep an eye -"

The medic shook his head and interrupted for the second time. "Negative, sir," he said. "I'm with Intrusions." Seeing the surprised looks of his squadmates, he explained. "Look, I was useless after Muir sucker-punched me. Once the tank's full, there's not much more I can do for Trika except keep her airway clear, and Rubi can handle that. Besides," he added, making sure to soften his voice, "if Jaren wasn't injured before his capture, he might be when we get in there."

No one would directly look at Telia, but everyone knew that any sort of words she had ever spoken about Jaren were horribly misleading. Her entire facial expression betrayed everything she had ever said about him, and it was evident that the female sniper still had feelings for the missing Talon.

Captain Ski gave a respectful nod Stone's way. "All right," he acquiesced. "You'll get your chance to go in with Intrusions, however we might split the team. Danya, did they send the schematics?"

The hacker stood from her makeshift seat on the cargo bay floor and placed a projector in the center of the circle of Talons. She set the controls and backed away, giving an explanation along with the diagram that was shooting out from the top of the projector. "Intel High Council has given us this layout to go by, which will probably be confirmed by the data we collected from the terminal just inside the northeastern corridor," she told them, pausing for the roaring engines of an Intel transport to pass overhead. Apparently, Sergeant Bullwinkle had just arrived, for the engine noise seemed to be getting closer to the ground. "The base has a basement level with entrances outside of the base at these locations," Danya yelled over the noise and pointed to four separate "secret" entrances that appeared to be deep in the woods surrounding the base. "The basement has four rooms underneath these entrances that are connected by four hallways that form a square. IHC suspects that these rooms house weapons, and a lot of them. Supposedly," she rolled her gray-green eyes, "they have received several atmosphere scans that indicate chemical and radioactive substances below the surface. They're coming down to assist in the collection of these items and the capture of several wanted enemies of the state, which is our newest objective. So far, from their estimates, there has been little evacuation of the base. It seems that they think we've left for good, _or_ they're protecting something very valuable."

The projector shut down after displaying the hazy map. The Talons looked at each other for a long moment. Milan spoke his mind first. "That's absolutely ridiculous," he said in his normal, gruff tone. "I don't appreciate being a pawn in a game with no regard to my or my teammates' well-being." From the bloodstains on his shirt, he was one of the first people who had a right to question orders.

"I don't like it, either," Mekial admitted. "I don't think we can trust people who hide intelligence from us."

"...not to mention endanger us," Rubi said, particularly sore in both body and mind. "I wouldn't be surprised to hear if Jane Muir herself was a setup, to one day kill us all in our sleep."

"Quiet," Ski said calmly, and to his relief, the Talons fell silent. "I'll be the one to sort out this mess once we get back home, but our choices right now are rather slim." He looked at his chrono. Daylight was nearly at its apex. "Intel should be arriving in a few minutes for the party above ground, and that should give us a decent distraction to go in below."

"So we're going in even though we don't know if Intel is lying to us or hiding something else?" Quis asked while looking more and more worried as the conversation continued.

"Yes, and there are several reasons," Ski answered, a little agitated. "I have no intention of disobeying direct orders, which would earn us all either a quick trip to a desk job, a military court, or a prison." Some Talons knew which exact fate they would be forced to take. There were a couple who doubted they would remain in a Coruscant prison for a week before being tried and executed or shipped off to a very dark cell on a very distant planet. "Second, I have no intention of leaving a man behind, as some of you, I am sure, understand." Telia turned away and looked into the forest outside of the ship, hiding her pained expression and revealing eyes. "Third, I really don't get any warm feelings from recalling such a blatant and upsetting defection. Jane Muir may be a new member of Intel's public enemy list, but she's _definitely_ number one on ours. I will not be disappointed to apprehend her.

"Stone, you've just received a temporary promotion to head up the intrusions team," he continued, assigning positions. "Danya, the way should be effortless, but in case the team runs into something, I'd like you to be the intrusion slicer. Milan will join the team, and Mekial will fill in as an extra gun. The rest I want ready for a quick getaway. When you hear Intel coming from the sky, be ready for my signal. Stone, get your people ready."

The group broke easily, understanding the need to move quickly. Stone was gathering supplies and his group, discussing specifics about infiltration and positioning. Captain Ski made sure the Talons were moving before he headed to the front of the transport to prepare for their new mission.

"Sir?" Telia called to Captain Ski from behind. "Sir?"

Kevin paused and turned around to meet the sniper's sad eyes. "Thirteen, I -"

"Sir, I'm going with the intrusions team." She boldly stated her announcement as a fact. She felt stronger about nothing else than the need to save Jaren. "I don't care what you say about it, but I'm going. You can't stop me, either, so don't -"

"Telia, I was just going to agree with you."

She went silent instantly and just looked at him, her eyes full of questions.

"Look, Telia," Ski began, brushing a hand through his black hair, "I know that you have some personal reasons for going in there and getting Jaren." He stopped briefly after watching her redden from the comment. "Join up with Stone. I trust you to do what is right and I expect you to bring him back."

Telia didn't waste another moment looking stupid. "Thank you, sir." She saluted him quickly, running to the back to join the intrusions team.

Before she could fully reach Stone, Danya, Milan, and Mekial, however, another familiar figure popped up from nowhere.

"Did I miss somethin'?" the ever-disturbing Sergeant Bullwinkle called, watching the Talons move about in a hurry. "Y'all seem to be uppity 'bout somethin'!"

*****

Lieutenant Jaren Kai sat on the cold, durasteel floor in the depths of the mysterious Black Fire base. He had examined his surroundings several times, looking for anything that could be used to attempt an escape. It wasn't a big possibility that he _could_ escape, but at least it was something to occupy his mind while he waited for something, _anything_ to happen.

It appeared that he was in one of several basement rooms, and this particular room happened to be filled with locked crates. He had tried to open one, but they all seemed to be built sturdily and locked efficiently. His leg wasn't helping matters, but he had effectively stopped any bleeding and had wrapped it with a ripped portion of his left sleeve.

This was the first part of whatever interrogation lay before him. He understood that Jane Muir had done this sort of thing before, and he knew that she was probably pretty good at it. At the moment, he was supposed to contemplate exactly what was in store for him. The waiting process let a sense of fear and hopelessness invade the prisoner's mind and soften his defenses.

The fact that he knew what to expect did not, however, make it any easier to sit through. His mind kept wandering over the mission and consequent battle, filing away memories of the mistakes that had surely caused him to wind up here.

Jaren hadn't been paying attention too well to his _exact_ location. He remembered coming down a long ladder through a forest entrance and being dragged down a series of nearly identical and very perpendicular corridors. He had then been unceremoniously dumped in a corner room after, of course, being roughed up a bit by a couple of extremely bulky security officers.

_Almost to be expected_, he thought, touching a finger to his split lip. _Enemy spies and snipers are probably the most hated individuals in a war. They fear the fact that they can't fight us openly and that fear causes them to hate us. There probably isn't a person on this base that doesn't want me dead despite the information I might provide_. He chuckled morosely even with the bruises on his side. Either way, he was still dead. That they eventually would kill him wasn't in question. It was merely a matter of time. He wanted to make sure they killed him before he told them everything he knew, but he had seen better men give in to the torturous ways of even lesser enemies.

There was the possibility of a rescue, but he knew it was slim. There was no way the Talons knew about the underground section of the base. The intrusions team might have gotten that kind of intelligence from the data they had collected, but it would take several days to find it out, and by that time, he would surely be dead. Even if they raided the base they might assume he had been taken off-planet. Realizing that he faced his own death, Jaren suddenly regretted his decision to join the New Republic, to become a sniper, and to accept the invitation to join up with Talon Intelligence Squadron.

_If I hadn't done those things, I wouldn't be here_, he thought bitterly. He had risked a lot by joining the New Republic, and he had even denied his Imperial family's inheritance to do so. Everyone who had ever loved him disowned him when he signed up, and he doubted they would care when they received word of his death.

A stray memory made him stop his pouting for a brief moment. He was gazing through the scope of his rifle, watching a pair of soldiers beat a helpless woman protecting her child. At the risk of compromising his sniping position and the entire mission he had shot both troopers dead, saving both the woman and the child. He could still remember the look of surprise and gratitude on the woman's face as she gazed around, looking to acknowledge the person who had just saved her life. She was thanking a man she would never see or know. Those choices he had made early in his adult life had saved that woman, secured strongholds for the now strong New Republic, and ensured freedom for many, many worlds in the galaxy.

No, he had known the risks when he had signed up. He had served well and had accomplished a lot of good during his career. He couldn't regret that.

_Then why am I so upset?_ he demanded. He was almost surprised to find out that the only thing he really regretted was the fact that he had not gotten the chance to make up with Telia Aris. He hadn't had a proper chance to clear the air between them. The walls that had separated them from regaining at least some of their friendship were still there. He regretted not being able to say he was sorry for hurting her, for making her mad at him. He wished he could see her just one more time. He regretted not being able to touch her one more time.

_No_, he thought sadly as he leaned against the hard wall, _I don't regret dying. That happens to everybody._

_I truly regret not living more_.

*****

"What the hell is all _that_?" Stone demanded of his teammate Milan. The large Kiffar had been messing with a number of items that Stone _definitely_ thought was unnecessary.

"Flash grenades and some explosive units," he explained, strapping two more bombs to his tactical vest. "I want to be prepared."

"You must have missed the part about there being very dangerous weapons down there," Mekial smirked, already finished with her preparations and awaiting Stone's final orders.

Milan shook his head. "I didn't miss a thing; I promise I'll be _extra_ careful." The unusual, yet dry humor snatched a chuckle from the entire group.

Stone rolled his eyes, understanding that even in his best condition and with the help of three other people he couldn't hope to pry the toys from Milan's grasp. Instead, he let the man have his moment before continuing the rundown of their plan. "We're going in defensively," he told them, his grim face letting them know that he, too, was unsure of the intelligence they had received from above. "While Intel distracts them with the heavy guns, we'll run the length of this underground base from the furthest forest entrance. If any stragglers come from above, they'll choose the closest entrance, where we _won't_ be. We'll find Jaren and disable anything we deem dangerous on the way, including operatives of Black Fire. And if Jane Muir just _happens_ to be one of those 'dangerous' things we disable..." Stone shrugged, mock-helplessly. "What does Command call it? 'Fog of war?' Of course, _I_ never made the suggestion." A chorus of knowing nods met the pronouncement.

A buzz from his side alerted him to the initial signal to go ahead. "Let's move out, team," Stone ordered, tucking away his comlink and beginning their roundabout trek through the forest and to the designated entrance. Danya, Mekial, Telia, and Milan followed closely, remaining as relaxed as conceivably possible.

"If my family knew I was doing this, they'd be absolutely scandalized." Danya took a deep breath, trying to keep the mood light.

"What do you mean?" the friendly Mekial asked in a surprising response.

"Where to even start?" Danya snorted. "I come from a very wealthy Imperial family. You probably know the type?"

Mekial just chuckled, a sign that she knew _exactly_ what Danya was talking about.

Danya elaborated anyway, her nervousness making her more talkative. "They were all well-to-do, upstanding citizens. My parents especially. In fact, they were _so_ very upstanding that they believed themselves superior to pretty much every other form of life, Human or otherwise. I come from a proud tradition of totally shallow, money-crazed snots."

The bold comment even caught Milan's attention. He smirked before moving ahead.

"They never saw me as anything but property," she continued, a hint of bitterness evident in her tone. "A pretty little doll to dress up and show off to all their snobby friends in hopes of marrying me off into some family with even _more_ money. So, of course, I found all sorts of ways to show them that they couldn't control me." A proud little smile tugged at the edges of her lips. "It drove them absolutely crazy to think that their _precious_ daughter was capable of riding speeder bikes and hacking into private databases."

Telia rolled her eyes despite her consistent worrying over Jaren. She understood Danya's predicament completely. "I can't imagine _whatever_ you are talking about," Telia replied with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

Danya chuckled despite her apprehension. "Imagine if they could see us now..."

She abruptly trailed off as Stone threw a hand behind him in a gesture to keep quiet. The group quieted as ordered, seeing the forest entrance ahead. With a few more deep breaths and a couple of silent prayers, the new intrusions team prepared for whatever was before them.

*****

Kendrick sat in the pilot's seat of the _Hawk_, apart from the rest of the preparations in the cargo bay. They were to be ready for a quick escape, but it appeared that the _Hawk_'s more specific job was going to be directly within the battle above ground. As ridiculous as it sounded, the _transport_ was going to see a bit of action. The more orders they received from the Intelligence High Council, the more Ken found out how ridiculous all of the leading officers really were.

He tried to avoid thinking about Jaren. Every time he thought of his capture a flood of unwanted memories came back to him. He repressed a shudder as he unconsciously wandered back to his teammate. This was not the first time something like this had happened to someone Ken had known.

Special Ops was no place for the weak. Kendrick had long ago been assigned to ground missions with the prestigious group, but those missions were places where one would be more likely to leave his friends behind than come back to them. A man named Jeryl Lang had been a good friend to Kendrick in those days, but he had also been more of a father to Ken than anyone he had ever known.

And Ken had left him to die.

"_Don't worry 'bout me. Get going. I'll be right behind you._"

"_Don't try to fool me. You're hurt._"

"_You're an observant one." Lang's sarcasm could not be quenched._

_The blood from the blaster wound was started to ooze through his fingers._

"_Relax. I'm getting you out of here_."

_Lang swatted Ken's hands away. "The _mission _is more important. Get going before they get here!_"

_There was a shout from behind, and they saw the dark silhouettes of Imperial troopers running toward them. They'd been discovered. Lang leaned close, managed a small grin despite the pain. He had his blaster in one hand. "I'll tell them you said 'hello,'" he whispered. With surprising strength, he shoved the younger man behind him. "You have a job to do."_

_Ken had left Lang in the dirty back-alleys of Ord Mantell. He had left him for the Imperials, for the torture droids. He'd hoped many nights afterward that Lang had been given a quick death. Deep down, however, he knew the Imps would never have been so kind._

_It wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't leave another friend behind. For Jaren's sake, Kendrick had to do everything he could do on the surface to give the intrusions team time to get Jaren back._

_"Ken, you ready to fly?" The voice was that of cheerful Kithera Rinani. "We just got word that Intel has arrived and is ready to party."_

_The pilot rolled his eyes at that statement. "Did Captain Ski give any instructions or am I just supposed to fly around and watch the fireworks?" The [i]Hawk_ and _Eagle_ had been given clear instructions to not use their most dangerous firepower, like the transports' turrets, because of the potential Intel action on the ground. How the Talons were supposed to contribute to the battle, Ken did not know.

"Actually," Kithera began, not sure of how to explain their current situation, "Captain Ski is on board the _Eagle_ and will be running the escape scenario for the intrusions team. Rinin, Ty, and I will be joining you and making sure you're causing some damage."

"How's that?"

"We've found some stuff in the back that will work well from twenty meters and up," she said, but gave no indication as to what they had found. "The captain is taking Quis and Kaiba, and they're loaded with some of it, too. We're going to need to see some low flying stunts on this run. Think you can handle that?"

Kendrick began to get a number of new voices over his comm, likely Intel beginning their first sweep upon the Black Fire base. "What _exactly_ is back there?"

*****

"You can't really mean to dump it all," Ty said solemnly. He understood the situation, yet he was still trying to find a way around it. All of his hard work and sneaking around was for naught.

"It'll be all right," Rinin promised hollowly, putting a blue hand upon his friend's shoulder. "Just remember the recipe and you can always make more."

Kithera had returned from the cockpit and was making herself busy with the few bottles they had on them. She carefully poured the last bit into the last container and stood from her work. "It smells rather cheap, anyway," she said with distaste. "You could probably make better stuff with Bullwinkle's mopping solution."

Ty and Rinin turned around, looking offended. "The cheap stuff is always the best!" Ty pointed a threatening finger at her. "And don't forget those words next time you're begging for some of my brew."

"At least Captain Ski isn't as furious at you now that it proves useful," Rinin consoled Ty. "If he had found all of this earlier, you would have kitchen duty for at least a standard month."

"I have kitchen duty for twenty whole sessions anyway," Ty spat, upset over the punishment. "You'd _think_ some people would be _thankful_."

A jostle in the ship signaled its rise into the air. "We're hot for battle," Kendrick called from the front on their comms. "I see some ground resistance in the northern sectors. We'll be engaging in ten."

Kithera ignited the first three bottles, the mixture below fueling a very large flame, just as Ty had sworn the substance would do. She passed one to each of her teammates and the trio began to walk toward the edge of the cargo bay. They must have been flying at a decent altitude to get such a windblast, but as soon as Kendrick began his decent toward the ongoing battle, all three armed Talons were glad to be strapped to the interior holds. The jostling shook Kithera so badly that she almost dropped her bottle.

Suspended above the battle, they could see the Intel ship reeking havoc upon the mercenary base. Hundreds of operatives were now fleeing the base by whatever means they could, and the scramble below was only the beginning of whatever carnage Intel had in mind. "There." Ty pointed toward an extremely large transport vehicle, overturned and badly damaged already from the fighting. "Nail its undercarriage."

"Why?" Kithera asked, although the roars of several smaller craft were making it difficult to understand each other.

"Who's the mechanic?" Ty retorted with a sly smile, and without waiting for another word, threw his flaming weapon through the cargo bay and directly at the transport. Rinin and Kithera followed his lead, and as Kendrick pulled tightly to the left, they swung around in an arc to witness the largest explosion they had seen in a long time.

"_Sarca sil_," Kithera cursed, seeing the flaming transport flying into a dozen large pieces. Those pieces would surely split again and cause a fairly extensive chain reaction across the field where the mercenary group had parked all of their vehicles. "How did you know?"

Ty swung around in his harness and landed safely near the back of the cargo bay, ready to pass around more of his brew. He lit the three bottles on fire before explaining. "I've had a couple of commanders in the past provide me with some experience using those things. The earlier EE models have extremely loose sections that have flammable parts holding them together. I figured," he said, passing Rinin and Kithera another bottle and swinging back into place, "that they still haven't found a way to fix them without totally replacing them. We used to joke that 'EE' stood for 'Extremely Explosive.'"

The three shared a laugh before getting jerked around once more. "Sorry," Ken called to them through their earpieces. "Intel is making this fairly difficult for me. You guys ready?"

"Roger that," Kithera called back. "We're ready for a second round."

"Swing by the western side," Rinin told him. "That's where that terminal access point was, right?"

"Yeah," Ken affirmed. "And that's where the majority of the evacuation is taking place."

"Let's join the fun," Kithera smiled, the three ready to barrage the ground with Ty's deadly brew.

*****

He heard her footfalls long before she arrived at the door. The outside control panel took at least thirty seconds to disengage, and a painful thirty seconds it was. Jaren gave one more look around the room for something... _anything_ that would help him, but he figured his captors wouldn't have left him in the room with anything of real value.

The heavy durasteel door opened, and in walked Jane Muir, looking a bit more relaxed in her official Black Fire uniform. Its medium-gray tone set off the rank, insignia, and medals to the point of nausea. It was overly apparent that Muir was an important ranking officer, and she indeed looked the intimidating part.

"Lieutenant," she began, a trio of officers following her entrance, "I've a few questions for you that I hope you'll be so kind to answer."

"I've got a few for you, too," Jaren said, backing up to the wall and appearing nervous despite his preparation. "What kind of ridiculous demotion landed you a traitor's position with the Talons, and who did you have on the inside, _Lieutenant_?"

The tall, slim woman bent low and slapped Jaren across the face. "It's _Captain_, now," she corrected him, standing up tall in an effort to show her superiority in more than just rank. "I have both a higher rank and pay with my real position here. As for an insider, Black Fire's reach is far beyond anything you can imagine, so I wouldn't worry yourself with the details of how I came to be."

It sounded rather stupid, but his next question still bought him more time. "How can you be working for the _enemy_?"

Muir crouched down to look Kai straight in the eyes. "The enemy, Jaren, is whoever is not paying me the most." Muir, with years of experience in E.I.F.T.E., knew that he was stalling. Her partial answer would suffice for his inquisition. With a brief glance over her shoulder, she motioned for her minions to hold him down.

To Jaren's credit, he did manage to knock the first two officers aside before the third wrapped his arms behind him and locked them tightly. The first two quickly regained their composure and aided the other by grasping Jaren's black hair, pulling it back, and holding down his legs. Jane Muir stood back until they were finished and gave a large smile. "I assure you that even with my experience in this line of work, you'll be happy to know that I am in no way as practiced as my employers, who will be sorry to hear that they didn't get to meet you."

As she approached, Jaren tried to jerk away once more. He tried to ignore the agonizing pain in his left leg and the sharp object in Muir's right hand. Just before the pain began anew, he was sure he heard a commotion aboveground. It was no matter, however. His distressed cries drowned out any other noises that may have been present.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve: "You're on the wrong side of the war."**_

The intrusions team was not surprised to find the entrance to the underground base heavily guarded. Even with the notion that it would be that way, the group had enough trouble taking out the ten guards spread amongst the foliage. Milan took out his share as they popped up from the ground. His extraordinary ability to pick out hidden enemies only added to his unique and uncanny skill set. Mekial popped a couple of enemies in the forehead before Stone came in and stole her other prizes. Telia's sharpshooter practically took off three heads, while Danya had taken out one with three very well placed shots to the chest. When all was complete, the team stood amongst a pile of Black Fire bodies, ready to enter the fray of whatever was below.

"Remember, defensive formation," Stone reminded his team. He bent low to the ground and groped for the proper trigger to release the entrance, eventually hitting a hidden handle. Stone brushed aside several patches of grass and gave the handle a proper twist and tug. The top of the tube swung open onto its face, and Milan greeted the tunnel with a flash of his laser sight. There was no response.

"Clear," Milan said, grasping the top rungs of the ladder below and beginning his climb downward. Stone, Telia, Mekial, and Danya followed, and as she closed the entranceway and plunged them into darkness, Danya noticed the large amount of nervous sweat that had collected on her face and neck. She in particular would have to get used to situations like this.

Milan and Stone had made a wide sweep of the split hallways coming from the entrance tube. The hallways were made of duracrete, and single lights illuminated the way to the end of the hallway and the beginning of a perpendicular one. The air was moist and dank, and the duracrete floors contained imperfections that had collected water from some sort of minor flooding. All in all, it was a particularly dark and dreary place.

"Reading no terminal connections through any walls. It's dead down here," Danya announced quietly, putting away her equipment and trading it for a blaster. It appeared her only use on this mission was perhaps blaster fodder, but she didn't give up the possibility that the rooms would be control panel protected.

Mekial gave a hand signal from her own equipment readings. Telia glanced briefly at the readout and noticed the distinct forms of Human heat signatures. There were four to the left and many more to the right. "Jaren has to be that way," Mekial said, analyzing the group of four. "We may be just in time."

Stone motioned for the group to move. Several loud explosions sounded from above and the sound of starfighters vibrated down to their feet. Intel and the rest of the Talons were probably busy with the rest of the Black Fire base, and the sounds, though ironically cruel and vicious, were actually quite comforting to the still-new Talons. It was still hard to consider that this was indeed their _first_ mission.

It was Milan's hunting (or maybe stalking?) skills that caught the noise from behind the distant durasteel door. "Jaren's in there," he said flatly, picking up his own pace and setting up just in front of the door. Danya rushed ahead, recognizing the design of the control panel and flipping it open for a hack. She gave a finger countdown to the door's unlocking, and Mekial was poised to pull it wide. As soon as Danya's fist closed, Mekial pulled hard and turned her back toward the action, understanding the job would probably be very quick and dirty.

The surprise on the three operative's faces could not be hidden, and as they let go of Jaren to grab for their weapons, Milan let three shots fly at the first one and knocked him over. Stone and Telia were behind, exchanging shots with the other two officers. One shot grazed Stone's ear before Telia nailed the shooter in the chest four times. Jaren had gotten over the initial shock and had pulled the third officer's weapon from its holster. Jaren wasted no time firing upon his back. Stone took care of the front end. The chaos was over in a little less than ten seconds.

Telia rushed over to Jaren's side, the weakened sniper falling back against the wall, his breathing heavy. She placed a gentle hand onto his bloodied face, checking to make sure he was at least fit for an escape. "I'm all right," he said, waving a hand as if to assure her he could move. "I'm fine."

She jerked her hand back as soon as she began to discern exactly what had happened. Whatever his captors had used on him had been extremely sharp, in any case. "Did they do this? Where's Jane?"

Milan and Stone moved to help the man on his feet. Jaren took their hands and used every bit of leverage that he could to work opposite of his injured leg. "Muir managed the cuts," he explained, taking his fingers across his torn face as if to make sure it was still there. "They hadn't begun the torture yet."

Telia's face dropped when she realized what exactly could have happened.

Stone made sure Jaren was leaning on Telia before turning his own attention to his bloodied ear. Now that his ear matched his temple, he supposed he was going to have to take a bit more caution when running around with dangerous objects, like guns, knives, Jane Muir, and his shaver. He couldn't afford to lose any more of his handsome appearance.

"Do you know where she went?" Milan asked. He had begun searching through the pile of crates in the room, attempting to identify them.

"She left a while ago," Jaren breathed, holding his side. Telia continued to check him over. He would be all right, but he had been beaten badly. "She was called away by one of her employers. They're here right now."

That revelation set the group on its heels. Being so close to someone so dangerous was unnerving. They didn't even know these people, but they did know that Jane Muir's employers were probably unusually cruel.

"They might have called her away because of the attack," Danya suggested, walking into the room after securing the section electronically. Mekial was still outside keeping watch in the hallway, but it seemed that the explosions and chaos aboveground were helping to keep them hidden.

"Intel and the squad have teamed up to take out the base," Telia explained to Jaren. He nodded as if he understood, the sound of the aboveground attack enough of a clue.

Milan had taken out a very large knife and was prying the top of a corner crate off. "Any idea what they're hiding in here?"

Jaren shook his head. "They never mentioned anything. Supplies, maybe?"

"Intelligence scans from the sky indicate chemical and radioactive weapons," Telia told him, watching Milan and Stone tear open the crate.

Jaren managed a chuckle despite his pain. "They seem to be awfully aware of everything now that they're involved, don't they?" His own experience talking to Jane Muir had him very cautious of trusting Intel. "If we were the only ones on the ground, I'm sure we'd be running into a different story."

Milan tucked away his knife and tossed the largest portion of the crate top aside. Stone pulled apart the rest. They stood silent for a few moments, analyzing the contents.

"What is it?" Telia finally asked, her own curiosity getting the best of her.

Stone rolled his eyes and turned around, his expression one of disgust. "Just like they told us," he said incredulously, throwing aside another chunk of the crate to hit the wall. He stopped and attempted to catch his breath and his anger before he made a scene. Running a hand over his crew cut black hair, he laughed curtly. "That's hysterical and unbelievable, and all at the _same... time_!"

"Chemical or radioactive?"

"Both! It's all here, just like they said. What a bunch of _shavitt_!"

Milan was not so quick to leave the area or fly off the handle. "This stuff is labeled for delivery," he announced, putting his hand into the crate to carefully move something. "Its destination is Coruscant."

"That's kriffing awesome." Stone rolled with the news, growing more and more bitter with every new revelation. "These mercenary guys are really 'evil' to have planned all of this 'evil' without anyone knowing."

"I don't like it, either, but we've got to disable them before we get out of here," Milan said, taking a few items from his utility belt and setting them down near the pile of crates.

Everyone seemed to know what he was doing before he was finished. "Are you crazy?" Telia asked him, already knowing the answer. "You said 'disable,' not 'kill everything within a five kilometer radius.'"

He set the charges and turned around, strapping the remainder back onto his belt and heading towards the door. "I don't think we're in any condition to go hunt for any more and carry them all up to the surface before someone finds out we're here," he told them, nodding toward Stone and looking for his approval. The deed was already done, but Milan wasn't beyond asking permission, even if it was too late.

Milan got the approval that he wanted. Stone let out a sigh and rubbed the light stubble covering his chin. "The explosion would collapse inward from our position," he admitted, calming a bit and morphing back into his role as their leader. "Alert the rest of the squad and Intel of our plans," he ordered Danya, who was already on the line to Captain Ski. "In case of a miscalculation, everyone should be off planet before the explosion. Things might get a little messy when these things explode."

"This trigger has a wide range, but we'll have to detonate it before take-off," Milan informed them. "It won't reach once we're in the air."

Stone nodded, understanding well enough the risk involved. "No sense in standing around. Let's move."

*****

"This isn't looking good."

Ski gave a sharp and stern glance at Kaiba, who was busying herself with making Quis feel uncomfortable. While Kaiba seemed to be fascinated by every explosion and attack formation, the engineer and weapons expert was by no means interested in anything more than getting out of there. They had made a sweep of the southern end of the base and let loose some of Ty's now-famous brew, but the run had been short-lived. They had just received word that the intrusions team had succeeded in finding Jaren and were headed to the surface. The _Eagle_ was prepped and ready to go, and not a moment too soon for the nervous woman.

"Fourteen, keep a positive outlook," Ski commented lightly, sitting back in his pilot's chair and smiling wryly. "We're almost out of this whole thing, and then we can let some emotions fly once we're back home." He wasn't thrilled with the results of his "war games" thus far, but there was no use worrying about it while he could not wrap his hands around the responsible party's neck. The IHC would be hearing about the ordeal in very strong words from Captain Ski's very angry mouth.

"I keep going over the schematics of the underground base," she continued, not entirely concerned about Quis's wide eyes or wringing hands. "There's no way that six meters of dirt will keep that kind of explosion underground."

Captain Ski stood up from his seat just outside the cockpit and stretched his legs. "There is a possibility that some of the explosion will leak out, but it won't matter to us. We'll be in the air by then."

It was apparent that even he didn't totally believe his own statement, but it was Quis's mind that suffered due to thinking. She understood better than any other the exact specifications of the devices being used, the structures below, and the resulting reaction. If anyone knew what was about to happen, it was Quis. By her grim expression and nervous foot tapping, Kevin and Kaiba knew that Quis was _very_ unsure of their escape with the intrusions team.

"It can't work," she whispered to herself. "Too many variables. Dry ground. Loose soil. Storage facilities are a possibility. Chain reactions. Flight speed at four leagues per standard minute..."

"Quis, are you all right?" Kaiba asked, watching the unstable woman begin to fret and shake physically.

Kevin saw more than just the concern. He had a brief flashback to when he had first met the woman and had gone over the specifics of her initiation into Talon Squadron. Just as he had with his other members, Kevin had taken a good look at her datapad and had dismissed many of the red "danger" marks that plagued all of his squadron. One note had caught his eye, however: her father. The daughter of Onas Heartilly had once been described as even more brilliant than her inventor father, but her instability and emotional outbursts had landed her a position in Talon Squadron. As he looked on her again with that note on his mind, he then understood the issue behind the worry. This woman was too smart for her own good: a certified genius if one ever existed. Her eyes were moving back and forth now, as if she was reading a datapad or watching very quick events. Was she doing calculations in her head?

"It'll be all right," Kevin said, more in an attempt to comfort Quis than tell the truth. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and was surprised to feel her jerk beneath his touch. He squeezed her shoulder and began to feel her calm. "_I'll_ be flying us out of here, and I'm sure we can outrun anything that's chasing us, explosion or enemy fighter. We'll be out of here and with the intrusions team in tow."

She didn't want to tell them that the intrusions team was exactly what was going to kill them all, but that was exactly what was going to happen. Quis had complete faith in Captain Ski's ability to handle the _Eagle_, but every momentum equation pointed to a lack of lift and too much weight to outrun a potential supersonic explosion. She gave him a short smile that told him she didn't believe him and continued to brood over the possibilities of the exit strategy currently in place.

*****

"Two to Lead," Danya called, gripping both her comlink and the durasteel bars going upward toward the surface, "we're ready for extraction. We'll meet you on the surface."

She tucked the comlink away in her belt and continued the last few bars to the top of the tunnel. Danya was the first in line to the top and therefore would need to open the lid sitting on top of the tube. What she would also need was about all of the strength in the world and good balance to keep her feet on the bars while she worked. Her heavy equipment wouldn't help matters, either, but she wasn't about to complain when she had the injured Jaren just below her. His trek was slower, but he seemed to be all right for the moment, anyway. The rest of the group was bringing up the rear. Thus far they had escaped with Jaren and with no fanfare, alarms, or attention. The idea that they might make it out of the underground base without being seen and with only a slight graze was very odd. The majority of the base must have been evacuated much earlier, and much of the noise from the above attacks was loud enough to cover bantha migrations.

Danya took hold of the large wheel on the cap of the tube and hooked her boots between two rungs of the ladder. With as forceful of a push as she could muster, she twisted upward and let in the piercing light of midday. As she tossed the entranceway onto the grassy field, Danya grasped the last rung and hopped the last meter to the surface. Awaiting them was the _Eagle_, sitting pretty just a few dozen meters away beneath an outcropping of trees. She turned and gave Jaren a help to the top, and Milan was not far behind to give him a boost. Telia was next in line and had just put both feet on firm ground when a scream and a yell from below alerted them to trouble.

Milan had his laser sights pointed down the tunnel in an instant. Without a word, the man shouldered his weapon and practically leaped into the darkness with little care for his own well-being.

"Milan!" Telia screamed, lurching forward to watch him disappear into the depths of the tunnel below. Something flew upward and caught her eye as peculiar, and she reached out to grab it. As soon as her hand grasped the cylindrical object, she backed away and tucked it between both hands. She almost knew what it was before she opened her cupped hands and viewed the detonator for the explosive units below.

She began shaking her head and offered it to Danya, who refused to take it. Jaren, in pathetic shape anyway, held up a bloody hand for her to hold onto it. "You won't need it until Milan gets back up here. Just wait."

And so they all waited, with bated breath and the sound of the _Eagle_ ready for takeoff in the background.

*****

If it weren't for her amazing balancing act, Mekial would have smacked her forehead on the durasteel bars on her way to the ground. The strong, sharp grasp on her left ankle had flung her off the ladder and ripped a cry from the espionage expert.

Stone turned sharply and watched her plunge into darkness. "Mekial!" he yelled out unconsciously, jumping off the ladder and showing little concern for his use of her name.

He landed painfully wrong on his right foot amidst a host of gray-clad operatives. Mekial had landed on her back and was just getting her breath returned to her as three well-built men grabbed her arms and lifted her to her feet. Stone threw himself forward on his twisted ankle and wrapped his arms around the other two officers, tackling them to the ground. His momentum took them down hard enough to wreck their order, and by that time, Mekial had yanked her arms away and made her own lunge at the three men. Stone tossed several quick punches before he lifted his head from the fray on the ground and noticed Mekial making a move toward the back of the group.

The group was still too many despite Mekial and Stone's surprise attack. It didn't take long before all five soldiers had regained their advantage and had grabbed the two Talons before they could continue. A figure stepped forward, and only then did Stone realize the identity of the operative.

"You didn't think you'd make it out of here without a visit from me, did you?" Jane Muir asked, her voice full of cocky arrogance. She seemed surprised to see Mekial, but then her curious stare turned into enlightenment. The growing grin on her face made it very clear that she enjoyed every moment of bringing as much pain and sorrow to the Talons she had once called friends.

Mekial got a very rare opportunity and jerked her arm away from the officer on her left. Pulling back without a second thought and jabbing forward as hard as she could, she lined up her leading two knuckles with Muir's nose and connected.

The punch shocked everyone, but before Mekial could revel in the fact that her fist had drawn blood, another figure stepped out of far corner room and silenced the entire hallway. The presence of this figure commanded much more than respect and appeared to be of the highest-ranking members of the Black Fire Mercenary Group. Mekial could not make out the face of the person, but she knew from the stature, demeanor, and unique dress that this was no ordinary operative.

"Is there a problem?" the important figure's soprano voice called to Muir, who was wiping her nose with the very end of her sleeve. "I'd hate to see everything you've worked so hard to prove collapse at this very moment."

The embarrassed Muir had turned sharply and stood at attention, covering up a lack of control and ensuring her apparent employer that she had everything in her hands. Her officers snapped to attention as well, charging blasters and giving Stone a rough kick while he was still lying prostrate on the ground. Before Muir could prove her control, however, someone just had to come onto the scene to mess it all up.

Milan landed on the balls of his feet, tucked, and rolled out and into the backs of two operatives. He had taken a hold of his rifle and let three shots fly to clear a path to the rest of the fodder. Stone took the opportunity and rolled onto his back, kicking upward and using what nimbleness he had to land back on his feet and grab a spare blaster from his leg.

The mysterious woman in the distance watched officer after officer drop, turned sharply on her heel, and disappeared down the hallway. "Prove yourself _now_," she snarled before Talon blaster fire overpowered everything.

Stone blasted two operatives and aimed level at Jane Muir, whose expression showed much of her rage and little more. Milan had taken care of the other three men and also aimed true at Muir. If anyone had a score to settle with the woman, it was the armed Talon intrusions team.

Mekial bent down to pick up the bag she had lost during the fall and subsequent fight. Shouldering it and giving a nod to her teammates, she gestured toward their exit. "Let's go, guys," she said, not sure if she wanted them to shoot Muir or leave her for the explosion. The traitor's expression of anger had turned to smugness, as if she was sure she would make it out of the underground base one way or another.

"We can't risk letting her go," Stone said, his ear throbbing with the pain of almost having been shot off and his ankle screaming about the weight on it. "We also don't have any way to keep her."

Mekial couldn't believe that even _she_ was fighting the urge to load Muir's body full of blaster fire. "We could get in big trouble if we kill her instead of take her in, especially if she didn't engage us directly."

"That's why we didn't leave any survivors," Milan growled, "not to mention that she _did_ take the first shot just a short while ago."

Stone knew Milan had Muir under his guard, so he took the time to give Mekial a wry look. "I think if she engaged us any more we would have had to unload and waste every bit of energy left in these babies." He patted his blaster, a very meager example of what kind of firepower the Talons had brought with them. "And although we could benefit from everything that she might know, it's not possible to take her and we're not leaving her alive." He turned his gaze back to Muir and with a twisted smile that told her he didn't care, he lamely smirked, "Sorry."

The cool woman merely raised an eyebrow. "No need for apologies. You wouldn't have gotten anything out of me anyway. I'm much better at _dealing out_ pain than submitting to it." Her last added comment brought a brief smile to her face, one that brought out just the wanted reaction from her three former teammates.

Mekial was on her comm, attempting to speed up the process of getting out of their predicament. "Two, this is Eight. We're coming out."

"Are you three all right down there?" Danya's voice came back a garbled mess. "What the hell happened?"

Mekial kept her focus on her two teammates, who still seemed to be contemplating what to do with Muir. "We're fine. Eight, out." Tucking away her comlink, she gave a stern look to Stone and Milan. "All right, let's get out of here."

Milan took his rifle butt and gave a tough swing at Jane's head, slamming it across her face and sending her sprawling to the floor. The hit shocked everyone present, and though it might have surprised Milan as well, the total relief had much more of an impact on his weary soul.

Stone snapped out of his shock. "Works for me," he said, content at the sudden but satisfying hit. Turning with Mekial and ready to leave the mission behind, Stone took Milan by the shoulder and headed out.

Jane Muir had gathered what little dignity she had left and pushed herself onto one arm, wiping her now bleeding face with the other hand. "You're on the wrong side of the war, _gentlemen_," she called to them. "If your government has made you too weak to kill me, how will you fare against hundreds of bases, and many times that in manpower?"

None of the three turned to look at the disgraced Muir, a woman they had once found comfort in calling a teammate and a Talon. Mekial grabbed the ladder rungs and headed swiftly upward, and Stone followed suit tenderly on his ankle. Milan paused for a moment before taking to the top and gave a look over his shoulder at her. Muir had begun to stand on her feet, perhaps looking to follow or to escape. His side blaster found his right hand, and he only had to twist his body slightly to get off a shot at his former intrusion leader.

She took the blast in the gut, a slightly ironic shot that knocked her against the wall and left a pleased smile on the warrior's face. He turned and headed up the ladder. He didn't see her slide to the floor, the grimace of pain, or the leaking blood from the wound. He didn't hear her pathetic whimpers, or the ensuing quiet. He didn't care to. Milan was satisfied in the avenging of his teammates, as was customary to do by the laws and practices of his people.

Milan climbed the last remaining rungs and took hold of the awaiting Stone's hand. The corpsman pulled his friend onto solid ground and gave him a look of odd inquisitiveness, knowing that Milan had probably killed Muir, but willing to keep the matter a secret. The infiltration and combat expert gave a nod to Stone and a look at Mekial, who seemed unaware that anything had happened. In this fashion, Milan and Stone made a pact that would not be easily broken, even if the New Republic had an issue with the death of one such traitor.

Telia handed the transmitter back to Milan with a look of relief. "I wasn't about to push that button with all of you down there," she said, feeling a solid connection with most of the Talon members for the very first time. Milan took the object gingerly and nodded, eager himself to return home.

"Let's get out of here," Danya said, her eyes already on the _Eagle_'s open cargo bay. Quis and Kaiba stood on the _Eagle_'s platform and appeared to be losing their patience. Explosions continued to rain down upon the Black Fire base, and in the distance, New Republic fighters and transports screamed above their heads.

The grouped Talons didn't have to be told twice, but Captain Kevin Ski came on every comm anyway. "Let's move, folks," he said over the high whine of the engines. "I'm ready to get out of here, with or without you."

*****

"Are we getting out of here or not?" Kendrick called to the _Eagle_. The _Hawk_ was currently making a last circle around the Black Fire base, a flaming, crumbling, and worthless building nearly reduced to rubble. The dead lay thick along the ground, and New Republic ships swarmed about loudly. Kithera, Ty, and Rinin were strapped in and ready for flight. "Are you guys ready over there?"

The _Eagle_ lurched forward suddenly, taking to the sky. "We're ready," Captain Ski returned. "Intel is taking care of everything on ground and they're getting out of here, too. We're free to return to the Nest.

"Make sure you get the _Hawk_ away from our position. This underground explosion isn't going to be very pretty."

Kendrick twisted the shuttle around and headed for atmosphere. He was just about to adjust for altitude when three swift fighters zoomed by, filling his viewport with their heavy exhaust. He quickly identified the fighters as Black Fire.

"_Kriffing frack_!" he cursed, flipping his comm back on. "We've got some trouble!" The three fighters swept around and appeared to be coming back for a frontal attack.

"I see them," Ski replied, his own transport swarmed by fighters. "They seem to have found some able bodies and undamaged fighters."

_I don't know about that_, Kendrick thought, pulling the transport into a left turn to buy time. Black Fire had basically cobbled together the spare parts from various other ships to create the odd-looking machines, but he supposed they would still have the same capacity for damage that traditional uglies would. He had turned the _Hawk_ around just before the laser fire began to fly by his viewport. Indeed, they _were_ still dangerous.

"Guys," Kendrick yelled to the back of the transport and slammed a fist onto his rear shield controls, "we're going to need some support in those turrets!" If there was a moment to be thankful for a modified transport, it was at that moment. Two jolts rocked the ship from behind.

Kithera, Ty, and Rinin sprang into action. The _Hawk_ boasted two turrets, and it seemed a race to both weapons. Kithera and Ty raced ahead toward the starboard turret while Rinin rushed into the opposite one. Another blast rocked the ship sideways, sending Ty headlong into Kithera and knocking her aside. The brief distraction gave Ty enough time to sink into the turret seat and grab hold of the big guns.

The _Hawk_ made a turn and evaded several shots from the Black Fire fighters. The sweep also gave Ty and Rinin the opportunity to get a wide view of the number of fighters and their positions. The sight was not comforting.

"What's going on back there?" Kendrick called in a panic, more than likely cursing his ability to control the large transport in the face of real fighters.

The _Hawk_ lurched with the firing of both turrets. Kendrick jerked back as two of the ten fighters exploded in his face and began their chaotic decent. The remaining eight broke formation and split into downward spirals, evading varied shots from Ty and Rinin. "Never mind," he called back. "Just keep doing that and we'll be fine!"

*****

The _Eagle_ was having a bit more trouble. Captain Kevin Ski, as talented as he was, could not have foreseen some of the issues of piloting his own modified transport. The YT-2000 could take the hits that it was taking, but some of the used parts and minor, but unfinished upgrades, were causing some problems for all onboard.

"It's non-responsive!" Danya shouted above the other Talons onboard. "That shot fried the circuitry!"

Kaiba and Telia were busy attempting to hold together a couple of vital pieces near the cargo hold controls. "Don't let that go," Kaiba instructed Telia, emphasizing the words and looking just as serious. "If you let it go, the cargo door opens and... well, the door opens." She didn't have to mention the fact that everyone would fly out of the transport and meet a very quick end.

Jaren saw the scene unfolding and more than a few tempers rising. Grabbing Quis, he headed toward the turrets. "Come on," he said, practically dragging her, "we can assist Captain Ski better and not get in anybody's way."

The engineer seemed to know exactly what was happening. "But," she attempted to halt the persistent sniper, "I can't shoot those things out the sky! I don't know how!"

Jaren forcefully sat Quis into the turret seat and tapped on his comm. "I'll be right here to help you, but you can do this." The emotionally unstable Quis was on the verge of tears. "Quis, look at me," he ordered, mustering whatever authority he had and pretending that his face didn't look like processed meat. She didn't dare look up and just shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. Jaren stood up straight and demanded attention. "_Heartilly_, I am your superior officer, and I _order_ you to look at me."

Emotionally unstable, but trained to act, Quis lifted her head slowly to meet his gaze. His hardened face fell, and he grabbed her shoulder for encouragement. "You can do this. We all need your help right now.

"I trust you and believe in you. We all do."

It was a touching sentence that was quickly interrupted by the shock of laser fire through her viewport. She gave a quick nod and took a hold of the guns, preparing to fire at the enemy.

Jaren Kai, despite his pathetic shape, ran in pain the length of the hallways to the opposite turrets. He jumped into the seat and flipped on his cannons. The guns were vastly different than his sniper rifle, but the basic principle was the same: aim, shoot, and repeat.

It almost surprised him to think that less than an hour ago, he had committed himself to die a very unpleasant death at the hands of Jane Muir and the Black Fire Mercenary Group. The memory was now so very distant, and he had to focus in order to get his group out of their current predicament.

Jaren activated his targeting scanners and swung the lasers around to the nearest starfighter. This one in particular was a strange conglomeration of used parts scavenged from whatever was handy. The back half looked to have been gutted to accommodate larger engines.

The fighter fired its lasers, but they just bounced harmlessly off the shields of the _Eagle_, which were thankfully operating correctly amidst a host of other problems.

Lieutenant Kai took careful aim and fired. His first shot went high, but he quickly corrected his aim and the next two shots were right on target. The fighter disintegrated in a brilliant explosion.

Jaren swung the turret around and took out a pair of aging Z-95s as they began an attack run on the _Eagle_. Captain Ski was brilliant in his maneuvering and seemed to know exactly where to swing the transport to make way for Jaren to hit his targets.

"Quis, check those fighters to your right!"

*****

She was struggling to even keep the crosshairs centered on the screaming fighters, and she definitely wasn't hitting them. Everything flying in the air seemed to be moving too fast for her.

"Kriffing frack!" Quis repeated Kendrick's earlier sentiments. She mashed the triggers in frustration, swiveling the turret in all directions. A spray of laser fire lashed out from the _Eagle_ and managed to hit nothing.

"Steady, Quis," came Jaren's calming voice over the comm. "Just concentrate on a single fighter at a time. Forget about the others and just pick them off one at a time."

Quis wiped the sweat from her brow and brushed her hair aside. _Come on... you can do this. You don't want to disappoint the squad or Jaren. Just do it!_

Three of the fighters were on an intercept vector with the _Eagle_ as its goal. Quis targeted the leader and fired, picking off not only him, but one of his wingmen as well.

"I'll be, that girl's got a fine aim on her!" It was Jaren over the comm. "We might make a soldier out of you yet, Quis!"

*****

It didn't take long for the combined talents of Jaren, Quis, Ty, and Rinin to annihilate the Black Fire forces in the air. As soon as the last fighter had been blasted out of the sky, both transports gave shouts of victory.

"That's fine shootin'!" Ty exclaimed, turning around to give Kithera a hand slap. The woman's smile and approving nod showed her excitement just as much as her jumping up and down.

"Good work, team," Ski's voice came through on all comms, and the two transports became quiet. A relieved sigh could be heard, and most Talons took that time to breathe deeply themselves. They had just survived a very intense first mission, and a very dangerous one at that. Of all of the things he could have said, needed to say, and wanted to say, he only continued with a couple of final thoughts.

"We've thwarted more than a few plots against us, and you all have proven yourselves worthy of being Talons." He paused, and every Talon awaited his next instructions. Instead, they received the noncommittal response of a tired and harried man who would probably never get enough time to consider all that had just happened. "I'll debrief you all when we return to base. Let's head home, Talons. Intel's already heading out, and I've no intention of staying back for the clean up."

Ski swung the battered _Eagle_ around for one last mission objective. The unnervingly calm Milan Lirac let loose one phrase over his comm, and every Talon knew to brace themselves for a crazy ride. "Fire in the hole," he said, pushing the transmitter with satisfaction. The explosion rang out and caused the needed chain reaction to blow a hole in the planet almost a kilometer deep. Much of the surface pressure kept the explosion underground, but the _Eagle_ did get a bit of a lift from the force, which only propelled the Talons to their destination: Coruscant, and the Nest. No one really cared to look back at the destruction, for everyone was quite satisfied with congratulating his or her teammates.

The next batch of standard minutes was filled with cheers and laughter, congratulations and embraces. The _Hawk_ soared into atmosphere first, leading Ski and the injured _Eagle_ off planet and to their home.

Quis sat still in her turret and listened to the cheers from her teammates, still holding together their fragile transport, but excited about the victory they had all just earned. The clouds turned to stars, and she allowed herself the feeling of success as she lost herself to her surroundings.

Flying above the storm below, she finally felt as if she belonged to this new family. They had all come out on top and soared, just like the eagle that adorned their uniform shoulders.

Soaring above the clouds. It was truly where the Talons belonged.

_**THE END**_

**The Saga Continues: Talon Intelligence Squadron: Not Always Fair (Book Two)**

*****

Congratulations on completing Book One in our exciting series! We Talons hope that you enjoyed the first story in this amazing saga, and we hope that you'll enjoy the many stories to come.

To those who enjoyed this book and crave a little something more, we'd like to personally extend an invitation to you to become a part of the Talon Intelligence Squadron crew. The great plan for this TIS resurrection was to give our amazing saga a final home and to expand what we Talons affectionately call the "Talonverse." These characters and their adventures are endless, and the project itself requires passionate writers, editors, artists, graphic designers, and enthusiastic cheerleaders to create, perfect, and promote TIS. If you enjoyed this book and want to be a part of something truly unique in Fan Fiction, TIS is the place to be!

The series is big, but it is very possible to tame it. We've worked with new writers to help them catch him up on all the goodness that approximately sixteen already-extant stories can bring! If you're interested in doing the same and becoming a part of the editing/writing team, we'd love to have you. We're willing to work with as many people as would like to join, for as long as it takes.

If you're interested in contributing to the Talons in some other way, such as graphic design or art, we could desperately use your assistance for our website. We're going to need artists and designers with diverse talents to create the world in which TIS exists, and your help in making it happen would be much appreciated.

If you would like to help in some other way that we have not mentioned, we're still eager to have you on the team! This project is ready to take on as many people as it can handle, and we're excited to bring anyone aboard who wants to.

Please send us an e-mail with questions, comments, ideas, or your desire to contribute. The address can be found in our profile. We're excited at the books to come and the growth of this crew.

Thanks for reading. We're looking forward to hearing from you, and we'll definitely be back in action in next Wednesday. Thanks!

On behalf of Talon Intelligence Squadron,

Muis


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